


Shadows

by BluntBetty



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dreams, Drugs, Fear, Gen, Inception - Freeform, Mystery, Nightmares, Revenge, Weakness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 24,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluntBetty/pseuds/BluntBetty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The seed of fear can trap us in our own prison. What's behind the eyes of the people we think we know?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Seed

Within each of us is the potential.

 

The potential to create, to destroy.

 

The baited breath that can fuel empires, rallies of people, and a drive that can tip even the most balanced person off the cliff of sanity.

Potential is the ground, the rich fertilizer that can nurture the most basic pieces of our minds: ideas.

 

Also, potential is wasted if it isn't given a proper idea. Ideas and potential go hand in hand. Even if one has the most brilliant idea, they will go nowhere without promising potential and a passionate drive.

 

And, just as we see potential and ideas as beneficial, whether to ourselves or to others, they can also be a downfall and a deadly poison.

 

The potential that fuels ideas can run through our veins, infecting us and feeding on our deepest dreams our lightest hopes and the pit of our fears.

And when we let ourselves become off guard, even for that small moment of false security, it is then that this poison strikes and strangles. This weed can take the victim to Hell, a personal purgatory to relive over and over, day by day. The images, the sounds, the smells, the emotions running on overdrive. They can trap you until the only real escape is Death.

 

And only if one is lucky can they truly escape the haunting passion of their own mind in eternal rest.


	2. Cobb: Weight of Worries

His life was mundane.

His day consisted of torturous routine.

His time was spent in sorrow and regret.

And this is how it was going to be until he died. How it had been for the last twelve years.

Each day, the only way he was able to go on, he thought about Phillipa and James. Wondered about their school work, their friends, their hobbies.

Did James still love his chicken with ketchup and barbeque mixed together?

Did Phillipa ever start liking her hair worn up?

He would never know these small, insignificant details.

Here he was, rotting from the inside.

Mal had won, in the end.

Their grandmother refused to let them visit him. And he was sure most if not all of, his letters to his children were thrown in the trash. Burned, if she had any say. Their grandfather had passed on nearly a decade before.

His last support.

The only person who could help and bother to care of his innocence.

Did his children even know he was alive?

Had they been told he'd died while working? Joining their mother somewhere where they couldn't go to, not for a long, long time?

Or that he'd run away because he didn't care?

Each night, as this thought plagued him in bed.

It bittered the tears that came silently, the ones that he wished he could hide. The ones that he wished didn't exist. The ones that he shouldn't have to let run out.

Of all thing things in the world, of all the emotions and thoughts that his children could have, ponder on, worry over, the thought and feeling of abandonment was one he wished they never feel. He dreamt of ways to tell them they were not unloved, unwanted.

He knew that children could bare the weight of the world on their shoulders if they wanted.

His worst nightmares had come true.

Losing his other half to his whole.

Having no one to care.

But the one that he was so unsure of, yet, the thing that ate away at his last shred of light in his soul, was that he was now unloved. That no one knew enough to cast him a shred, a glance of positive feeling. Something akin to love or love itself.

Mal waited for him in his dreams.

But she was now a demon, taunting and delighting in his anguish.

And each time, as dawn broke the horizon, as his monotonous day began anew, his heart would break a little more.

–

Dom sat up in bed, sheets tangled by his feet, falling onto the floor. His breathing, labored, was the only sound in the room. Looking around, he'd once again managed to knock over this alarm clock and the glass of water he'd kept nearby. The shards of glass were everywhere.

But that didn't matter. Not right that moment.

He tripped his way out of bed, trying hard to be quiet. The window in the hall as he passed filtered in moonlight, confirming the late hour and the near guarantee that they would be asleep.

The door creaked and whined, but he barely cared. His eyes searched the dark for the sleeping faces of his children. The only way he would know he wasn't dreaming.

James was splayed out in his bed, covers tossed to the ground in his sleep. Phillipa curled on her side, one arm hanging off the side of the bed.

He let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, a relieved sob escaping his chest.

The nightmare, while lessening as his firm belief in security grew, was very much real in his mind.

He used to not be able to dream without the aid of those pliant tubes and the needles.

Now he craved the black rest he'd wished to once escape.


	3. Eames: Mirror, Mirror

With every shift in the sun, his face would follow suit.

It was all supposed to be an illusion; he didn't understand. He'd never lost control of his ability in his life.

Women, alcohol, fun and games, those were a different tale, but this...

This was supposed to be instinctual. As simple and flawless like slipping on a well-loved glove.

But this...this was horrific.

The past was coming back to haunt him in ways he'd never thought possible. Faces, identities that he'd technically stolen. They were back to make sure he'd never forget.

When there was a drastic change in physiology, his body ached at the shift, at the supposed illusion. Bodies of slimmer, younger men were like aching, tingling limbs. Women were like breaking bones, shifting his vertebrae and contorting it into a more compact version of his own.

He barely cried out anymore, only when he had to change sexes now. No one was here to listen to his screams, to sooth his fear. No one could come to tell him what was going on.

For three days, he'd been sitting alone in his apartment in Manchester, his body seemingly filing through his past masks like a catalog. He thought he was nearing the end now, as he came on the image of Browning.

He wanted to cry, but he didn't know how.

Crying was something he hadn't done since his father's funeral, something he'd promised himself he wouldn't do again.

There was supposed to be nothing frightening enough to make him cry ever again.

But he never thought this could happen.

He'd never heard of this happening.

No one could have ever dreamed, imagined,  _willed_  this to happen.

Why would this happen to him?

It  _would_  happen to him.

His luck always was rubbish. Unless he used his master forgery skills.

Then things came out half way decent, mostly.

Tucking his head between his knees, he could feel the age of Browning wear on him. As if he was actually on the last hill of his life instead of his prime. His skin wrinkled, thinned. It felt like paper as he stroked it.

Sometime the day before, he'd stopped bothering with clothes. They would fall off him, become painfully tight. Sometimes rip right off him, stinging his skin and leaving marks until he shifted form again.

"This isn't supposed to be this way," he moaned, grabbing his now thinning, grey hair. "I'm not in a dream."

As  _dream_  left his lips, his watch beeped on the floor next to him. His skin felt like it was on fire, his spine shrinking. He wondered who he'd changed into after Browning, already lost. The beeps on his watch continued as his grey hair grew out into chemically colored blond hair, his frame shrunk drastically.

A cry he couldn't hold back escaped his lips and he shuddered, nearly in time with the sudden ear-deafening  _tick, tick, tick_  of the timepiece. An unbidden thought came to him, hitting him like a flash of lightening from the summer sky.

As he grew the small breasts and thin fingers of his female  _face_ , he reached out, grimacing as his morphing fingers tried to hold on to the gold watch.

Only when the last shudders ran through his system could he pull it to him.

"What...what in the name of god..." he gasped out.

The second hand sped by, oh so much faster than it should.

His first thought was to kill himself.

Then to wake up and kill whoever was making him dream.

He hadn't dreamed for years.

But before he could try to stand and reach for one of his hidden pistols, the structure around him shook violently. Something was waking him up above.

And whoever it was, he was going to strangle.

–

He dragged out the old, full-length mirror from the back of his closet, sat in front of it, and nursed a bottle of whiskey.

Of course, he'd been alone when he'd bolted awake. Death in dreams always had given him vertigo.

The woman he'd spent the night with was long gone, leaving an orange post-it note with her number and name on the bedside table. He hadn't bothered with it. Instead, he stared at himself, memorizing his own features, his imperfections and perfections.

It took a lot to scare a man like him. Someone who'd seen so much, even more so than others could comprehend. And it took a lot to make him want to pick up his cell phone and make a call.

"Arthur, old chum. We need to have a chat."


	4. Ariadne: Chained Down

She was stuck.

Trapped in a glass prison, on the inside lookout out. And she was stuck. Boxed in.

All her violent outbursts on her cage did nothing but give her throbbing hands and a raw throat. Everything about her goes unnoticed.

People meander and stroll past, like pedestrians on the street. Strangers who would never meet each others' eyes.

Her box gave the illusion of being as big as the world that surrounded it, but it was so, so tiny. The size of her childhood room, maybe enough for a full-sized bed, a writing desk, and a dressing table with barely any room to walk around. But it held none of this.

Just a traveling trunk in the center, a deadbolt hanging off it, broken and mangled.

When she took a step towards it, she heard cheering on her left. Looking, she saw her family gathered together. She went to that side of the box, leaning hard against it. Calling for her mother, her little brother seemed fruitless. They were all to busy fussing over a bassinet in the middle of them all. Her cousins and aunts and uncles were all cooing at, what she supposed, was a baby.

 _Who was having a baby? Why wasn't I told?_

As if they could hear her thoughts, Ariadne's brother looked up, annoyed.

"Where's Ariadne?"

Her mother and her Aunt Jenny gave each other a long look before answering him.

"I called her, but no answer. I guess she couldn't be bothered," her mother's voice rang with disappointed disgust.

"Not that we really expected her. She doesn't seem to put much effort into anything anymore," Jenny added snidely.

Ariadne beat on the wall of glass, determined to get their attention. Her family... Why were they angry at her? What had she done to deserve their nasty comments?

To the right, her eyes caught her schoolmates and friends, talking at a cafe. Dragging her hand along the glass, she went to watch them, a lump in her throat. She needed to get out of here and to call her family. Now.

Five of her friends were surrounding a table, chatting amicably. Seeing them together made her realize she hadn't been spending a lot of time with them lately... She missed these times they'd all go out and just relax from their school work, which wasn't often. But something, a topic, had caused their faces to take on different emotions.

Anger, disgust, relief, worry, smugness.

Then she heard her name.

Ryan, the one nearest to Ariadne, started talking about her. She could only see half his face, but she could tell he was upset. "Where the hell is she?"

"Well, she hardly said anything about leaving before, so I doubt saying where she was going after was on her list of things to do." Next to him, Fiona sipped at her coffee after speaking, then added, "She can't go too many places. I mean, she dropped out for god's sake."

Dropped out? Wait... Were they talking about her? She'd never drop out. Architecture was her life. She'd never give it up.

Her closest friend, and lone Parisian native of the group, Claire, chewed on her lip before speaking.

"Don't you think something is wrong? Ariadne would never just leave without a word..." The others gave her a look Ariadne couldn't discern. "Well, besides a few months ago... But she wasn't totally gone. We saw her from time to time. And the professor said she was okay, just doing a small work-placement."

A hand came down on the table, getting their attention, also startling her terribly. The noise had reverberated throughout her prison, shaking the glass like a small earthquake had come.

"Who cares. Now that she is gone, we can focus on our schoolwork and getting top spot. It's a real competition now. None of us had any hope with her here."

She didn't want to see this anymore. It hurt to see what her friends were really thinking. The lump in her throat was growing and tears prickled at her eyes.

Rain suddenly started pouring on the group, causing them to split up and all run for cover in different spots. The water seemed to wash away the scene and she turned once more to her right to see something else. Anything else.

But not this.

Her fists balled up, the tears fell.

As if her neck could no longer support the weight or the burden, her head came down with a painful  _thunk_  onto the wall that was now nearly supporting her full weight.

Cobb was with them again.

Working with Arthur, Eames... Even Yusuf had been called in. But someone new was there. They were doing her job, building mazes, mapping blueprints.

She laughed and joked with the others, like she had.

She looked older, younger than most of the others, but closer to maybe Arthur's age. Certainly older than Ariadne's twenty three years.

She'd been replaced.

Why?

Why hadn't she been told?

Well, the lack of phone calls was certainly a clue... But she'd thought she would have been given a courtesy call that lead along the lines of "We won't call you again, so don't wait up."

A sob escaped her when she saw the woman sneak a kiss to Arthur's cheek when she thought the others weren't looking. And instead of the stoic face she was used to, he actually grinned.

Slyly.

"Anna, this is fabulous work," murmured Cobb as he looked at her models.

A chord struck her from the inside. Cobb had never truly looked at her blueprints like that before. He never could, thanks to Mal, at the time.

Yusuf, looking up from his chemical notes, grinned. "Never saw anything like them. Not even Ariadne could live up to those, I don't think."

"Be fair, now, Yusuf. She never had the opportunity. Though, I have to say, she'd have to work hard at it." Eames played at his totem, the poker chip flipping through his fingers effortlessly.

 _He'd never been able to do that before..._

Eames looked up, as if hearing a song or voice no one else could. He looked right at Ariadne, hunched over, and played with the totem more. Staring.

Backing away, she nearly tripped over the trunk behind her. The lock rattled and fell to the floor, rust flakes floating down slowly.

Feeling Eames' eyes still on her, she tried to focus her attention away from the laughs of Arthur, Cobb and Anna as she knelt down and tried to open the small box.

The lid was rusted, which made it difficult to lift at first. It creaked and groaned in protest.

But inside, she saw all her current projects.

Blueprints, small models. Notes on various kinds of papers.

All of them were marked with stinging red marks.

Failure.

Too simple.

Wouldn't work correctly in the real world.

Try harder, Ariadne.

She tried to reach in and grab them. To see what each one said.

But each time she reached her hand out, they would shrink away, as if it was bottomless or just a projection.

She reached farther own, nearly tipping over into it, feeling like Alice about to fall down the rabbit hole.

"Its a shame, isn't it? That Ariadne ran off like that."

She lifted herself out of the trunk, falling onto her behind in pain, as the voice spoke conversationally.

The last wall of the cage. She hadn't looked there yet.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to.

She couldn't stop her crying.

All the words of the people she loved, trusted were like needles. Thousands of needles in her most sensitive spots.

Why were they doing this?

She wouldn't look at the last wall, but despite her denial, the person kept speaking.

"She messed up one job, then... Just collapsed. Failed so many classes, then just dropped out."

"That doesn't sound like her..."

"We were all taken back. We'd all put so much confidence in her and she messed up. No one knows where's she's gone now."

"Hiding in shame?"

This sounded nothing like her. She hadn't failed anything in years. Not since middle school. She wasn't allowed to mess up. No room for failure.

She went to stand, to tell these people off, but she couldn't move.

Chains were on her legs, her wrists.

When had they snaked onto her?

They came from the box and when she noticed them, they started to slowly pull back into the box, dragging her with.

 _No... No, stop._

She tugged on them, but unlike the metal on the trunk, these were brand new. Flipping over, she looked for something to grab onto. But not even the walls of her prison would give her this.

Eames was still watching her, the others gone. His smirk widened when he saw her look at him. He continued to play with the poker chip, faster now.

Over, under, over under.

It weaved between his fingers like it was made just for that.

"STOP!" Ariadne yelled. At what, she wasn't sure. The chains were dragging her into the box of her failures, Eames was staring, her family and the mysterious voices were talking louder now. But when she yelled. It became quiet as death.

Eames tossed the chip to the ground and it rolled to her. Her fingers reached for it unconsciously, which made her start.

She wasn't supposed to touch this. Eames wouldn't have let her. She tried weaving it between her own fingers and found herself doing it as flawlessly as he had.

–

–

"And that's when I woke up." Ariadne shuddered as she finished, toying with her now empty water bottle.

Cobb tented his fingers together, his elbows resting on the table of the restaurant they were at. His face was in deep concentration. "When was this, Ariadne?"

"Two nights ago?"

"Do you still dream in general?"

She nodded. "Not so much as I used to, though."

Cobb ran a hand through his hair and reached for his drink. "I don't like the sound of what's going on. It's not just you, though..." He threw back his drink and sat the glass on the surface a little harder than he meant to.

"You, too?" she asked timidly. When he didn't respond, she had her answer.

Silence sat between them for what seemed like hours. "I'm afraid to sleep now, Dom," she admitted.

He licked his lips. "Me too."


	5. A Hand

"I haven't experienced what you've been, but this is something serious."

Arthur made a not in his small leather book and looked back at Ariadne.

"There's more than just me and Cobb?" She shrugged off her jacket and laid it at the edge of the bed.

Arthur had asked her to meet him in a hotel near the quieter bank of the river in Paris. He told her he'd been heading this way originally when Cobb gave him a call, asking him to check in with Ariadne. Thankfully, Cobb had explained the situation to him, saving Ariadne the job.

Behind her, she saw the familiar silver case laying on the center of the mattress, and she wondered what he had in mind.

"Yes, Eames, of all people, contacted me a few days ago. To say he was upset would be putting it lightly... The man's not afraid of much."

Ariadne's mouth hung open for a moment. With a chuckle, Arthur reached under her chin and pushed it back up, closing her mouth.

"Eames... Called... You? Wow."

He grinned wryly. "He didn't want to disturb Cobb at home with his kids, Yusuf is unavailable, as he usually is, and most others in our business wouldn't be as...trustworthy."

"Since this is, technically, all a crime network?" she smirked. Arthur nodded. "I wonder if Yusuf or anyone else linked to Fischer has had the dreams," she wondered aloud.

Helping himself to the small refrigerator in the room, Arthur looked over to the architect. "The chances of this are unlikely, but this whole situation doesn't sit right."

"You don't have to say that twice. I'm honestly afraid to sleep now." Arthur watched her for a moment, silent. She couldn't tell what was going through his mind. "Are you worried that you'll dream like this, Arthur?" Afraid to look at him as he answered, Ariadne busied herself with the hem of her shirt.

"I don't know. I don't understand what the point of these dreams are. If they're meant to scare us or if they're just random dreams. The only off thing about them is that, with the exception of you, none of us dream anymore. Ever. And to randomly dream these...nightmares, and all so close to each other, it seems wrong."

Ariadne ran her fingers along the cool sides of the silver case on the bed with her and thought. "What do you have planned?"

He stared at her hand, quiet for a moment. "Honestly, nothing." She gave him a startled look. "Hey, I have my theories and such, but I can't do much when I'm just grasping at straws. There's no specificity for me to work with," he paused when there was a knock on the door. "Speaking of specificity..."

He saw Ariadne tense on the bed as he went to the door and told her to relax.

Eames walked in the room, already starting to make himself at home. He paused when he saw Ariadne on the bed.

"Ariadne, love. Didn't expect to see you here." He cast a long look at Arthur, who glared.

"She's here for the same reason you are, Eames." Arthur closed the door with a snap and followed the man into the room.

Eames' smile dropped slightly hearing this, the teasing gone from his voice. "Oh, well that's a shame... Less fun for me, as well."

"Not now," he was warned.

He gave Arthur a quick look, then smiled at Ariadne. "Yes, later then. Why didn't you say our little architect was having some of these problems, too?"

"It's recent, Eames," Ariadne spoke up for the first time since his arrival. She'd watched their interaction and filed it away for later. But for now, she was tired and wanted to sleep without fear. "Arthur, why are we here?"

"Cobb asked me, as we figured this out, if you two wanted to go under and sleep with the influence. It would be more restful compared, and you would—should—be able to control the dreams."

"We would only get five or ten minutes of real sleep, though," Ariadne said, standing and walking to the large window in the room. She watched the busy Parisian street below them as she thought.

"No, Ariadne. He means we'd be under for several hours." Eames looked to Arthur, who confirmed this. "Which means quite a while in our dreams."

She bit her lip in worry, knowing the other two were watching her. Was he suggesting she share a week-long dream with Eames? Sensing her indecision, Arthur spoke up.

"Come look at this, Ariadne. You took, Eames. I doubt you've seen one of these in a long time."

The three of them crowded around the bed and watched as Arthur opened the case. Eames muttered something as the other watched for the architect's reaction.

Instead of the familiar little machine that put the under usually, she found herself looking at two smaller versions, side by side.

"There aren't many of these left. No real need. But they can put you both under and you don't have to share the same dream. You could, if you wanted, but it's not a necessity like the usual device."

"And this will work?" Eames asked, crossing his arms in disbelief.

Arthur looked at him, them to Ariadne, who was staring at the machine. "Yes. No outside influence, other than someone hooking up and entering your dream the typical way, can affect you. Assuming this is all an outside influence at all."

"I'm proud of you, Arthur. Looks like you but a lot of thought into this. Imagination and ingenuity aren't usually your thing." Eames laughed and shrugged his jacket off. Arthur just glared at him, keeping silent. "Are you in, Ariadne?"

Arthur busied himself with the suitcase, turning it on and handing Eames a needled tube. Eames was out quickly, eager to sleep restfully for the first time in a week. He was surprised to see Ariadne so hesitant to dream. But since he wasn't familiar with what she was dealing with, her doubt must have been justified. "Ariadne?" He handed her her needle when he saw determination flash across her eyes and followed her to the bed.

"How long are we going under?" she asked, pulling out her chess piece, checking on its weight and drawing from its reassurance.

"I've set Eames for nine hours, as he requested this morning. Do you have a specific amount?" When she told him seven hours, he set the timer and watched her lay down. "Don't worry. You have your totem, you should know you're dreaming. Worse case scenario, you can kill yourself to come back early."

Her hand holding the needle shook for a moment before she inserted it into her wrist.

"I'll be here," he told her, worried. She gave him a weak smile before letting the sedatives take over.

Arthur watched her for a few moments before taking her vitals and doing the same to Eames. Now he just had to find a way to occupy the next nine hours or so.


	6. Arthur: Sweet Sacrifice

Arthur was not sitting in the hotel room an hour after the two had gone under before he began feeling restless. He had plenty of work to busy himself, he wasn't sure if it was at least seven hours worth. And he would keep his promise to Ariadne and not leave.

He was a man of his word.

To distract himself from spiraling further down a void of restless boredom, he threw himself in his notes regarding their nightmares.

He'd had them all give him the specifics. This was something that only Cobb had been wary about. His dreams had become his weakness tangible. While the dreams themselves were not touchable nor real, it made them come close to being personified and given substance.

Reality.

Eames had no qualms about offering up his dream. It was actually something that would have been obvious for someone living in his skill. Arthur hadn't been surprised at all when his dream had been detailed and he'd finished explaining. A man like Eames wouldn't be shaken by much and something this generic with a twist was expected.

Ariadne had proven to be the most open, not holding back. As far as he knew. She hadn't wavered on her tale and it was the exact same thing, fleshed out, that Cobb had paraphrased to him when they'd met. Dreams were not unheard of for someone as new to the game as Ariadne. She'd only done one job. But the damage to her psyche going three levels deep and into raw limbo had to have had a subtle effect on her. And it was showing in her dreams.

It was a shame that the last of her dreams had to be tainted with these numbing nightmares.

When Arthur had several pages of detailed notes on the three separate dreams, he started compiling a list of similarities between the three. As he felt like his list was complete, the gears in his head started to click together in all the right ways.

And a feeling of dread lodged in his throat.

He glanced at the two on the bed, breathing even and looking undisturbed. He checked their pulses and looked up, startled when there was a knock at the door. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was half past two. Right on time.

Room service brought in his lunch and left quickly when Arthur nearly tossed his tip with an unfriendly glance. The food looked amazing, as it always did in this hotel. But he wasn't sure he could eat with the sense of quiet panic hanging over him like a guillotine blade. He forced himself to eat anyway, knowing he had a long way to go.

– –

He was a good swimmer.

It was his favorite sport.

But right now, he was drowning. He couldn't breathe, couldn't see, and his ears echoed with the thick sounds of his flailing body.

As he thrashed to get to the surface, his mind registered something wasn't quite right.

He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see was a tinged blackness.

Something wasn't right. The water was thick, much too thick and so hard to move in.

His hand reached up and he met the surface and he pushed up eagerly. His gasps for breath were deep and raspy, the water flowing down his face and choking him as it gushed into his mouth. Opening his eyes again, he tried to wipe away the water, but his eyesight was impaired.

By a red stickiness coating his lashes.

He looked around for the first time, finally catching himself in a strong kick to stay afloat and a strangled scream left him breathlessly.

A pool of blood.

He was wading in a swimming pool of blood.

Thick, sticky, a deep, burgundy red. A red so deep and near black, it seemed to suck the life and light from the room, trying to grasp at any life around it. To gain back what had been stolen from it.

Arthur tried to swim to the edge of the pool, but the thickness surrounding him made it difficult. By the time he'd reached the safety of the edge, he was completely out of breath and wheezing. He was able to semi-gracefully lift himself out of the pool and he shivered as he laid on the edge, naked. He wished for the warmth that he'd just left, but remembering that he'd have to climb into the pool of blood made his stomach clench.

Realizing he had to figure out where he was, he managed to lift his body into a sitting position and started looking around.

The room was empty except the large, seemingly fathomless pool and the pillars that supported the ceiling. The pillars themselves seem to cry their own tears, stains running down them. Some were old, dull and rusty red, and others were very much fresh, still running down to the stained tiles under him. Several of the pillars had taught chains wrapped around them, which peaked his curiosity and dread.

Standing on shaky legs, he stood and slowly made his way to the nearest pillar running with fresh blood. Several steps to wind around it and a sound, so unlike him left his body, like his soul leaving him and his dirty, now macabre being.

Cobb, beaten and cut to near shreds, hung there. Suspended by the sharpened chains, he looked waxy and lifeless. Blood still trickled from some wounds, but his entire being was largely still.

Arthur's stomach heaved, nothing came up but bile, hot and bitter.

The next pillar on his right had to smaller figures. Faces beaten beyond recognition and limbs hanging awkwardly, he heaved again, his stomach empty and aching. Cobb's children.

He stumbled past the mangled corpses, seeing his mother and little sister in similar states. Eames on a pillar close to the pool, face slashed apart, limbs chained above him awkwardly. Yusuf and others like Claudia, Ethan, and faces he'd worked with once upon a time were bound up. Some of their faces were left untouched except for their own splattered blood. Their eyes staring unseeing, accusing at him as he walked by them. Each time he found a new body, he cried on his knees for their lifeless shells.

One pillar loomed over him like a shadow in the night. He could feel the intense glare from its corpse. It was one he didn't want to see. The one that may or may not leave broken him.

His sense of respect overrode the sickening fear that washed over him and he crawled his way to the pillar. At this point, he could barely stand, weight down by all the implications and accusations the bodies unknowingly flung at him.

Or, maybe, in their last act of life, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Making sure his soul would carry the guilt, shame and unending  _knowing_  of what had happened to them.

When he came to this last pillar, he saw the blood still ran fresh, wet and bright red like fruit. Forbidden fruit.

He laid at her feet, looking at her helpless body splayed out like Christ.

Her skin was carved with words, oaths and promises from the dead. One chain held her up by her neck, the rest of her body nailed to the stone with railroad spikes. Wrists, ankles, thighs and chest. Her entire nude body drenched in blood so like his own. Only near her eyes was her skin clean. The beginning trails of white skin down her blood stained cheeks. Tears that continued to fall.

And then she blinked.

He choked on his own tears and reached a hand out to touch her. Before his fingers could graze her feet, a hiss left her lips. He stopped, shocked. Her eyes narrowed in contempt and they shifted down to her body as if to say  _You did this. You are why I have been sacrificed._

"I didn't... I would never hurt..." his voice was barely a whisper. His strength to do more than exist was nearly zapped from him.

 _Our blood was shed because of your_ sins _, Arthur. You bathed in our blood, like Satan himself,_ Ariadne hissed. Her voice so quiet, so soft and full of menace that Arthur had to listen with every fiber within him, let the words resonate before they registered.

She threw her head back against the hard stone under her and let out a shriek of anguish.

It felt like it lasted a lifetime to Arthur.

Her wail sunk into every molecule of his body, setting him on fire.

And he screamed with her. And kept screaming when she stopped, her body limp and expired.

– –

And he woke up screaming, falling out of his seat to the floor, his tears wetting the carpet.

The bile rose and his throat and he stumbled to the bathroom, heaving into the toilet until he had nothing left in him. Until nothing but the tears would come.

Despite his aching muscles, he stood, flushed the toilet, and rinsed his mouth out. Cold water on his face helped, but it wasn't until he took out his loaded die and cast it five times that he felt any semblance of safety.

Unable to look at himself in the mirror, he cried.

Quiet sobs of fear and self-loathing escaped his chest as he gripped the counter. His knuckles were white, his fingers turning numb from the pain.

In the other room, he could hear the beeping of Ariadne's machine, counting down the last thirty seconds of her cycle. Quickly, he washed his face and straightened himself out. Heading back into the bedroom, he sat merely seconds before her eyes opened and breathed a sigh of relief.

Ariadne let out a breath and sat up, removing the needle and handing it to Arthur who'd stood and started tucking it into the case.

"How was your sleep, Ariadne?" he asked conversationally. She stretched as she answered.

"It was weird being in a dream that long. But I feel better here, now."

His hypothesis had been correct then. "Good, good."

She watched him as he sat back down and made notes.

His hands were shaking, minutely.

"What's the matter, Arthur? Did something happen?" Arthur stopped his writing for a moment, then said,

"Did you want food? We can order you some room service, like I did early. It is dinner time."

Ariadne stood and put her hands on her hips stubbornly. "Arthur." He looked at her, face blank. "If I order food, will you please tell me what's wrong? You're shaking like a leaf."

He was quiet a moment, then told her that the phone and menu were near the couch in the sitting room.

She sat, going over the menu a few moments before ordering something quickly. As she finished her order, Arthur came and sat by her on the couch. When she hung up, she looked to him expectantly. He was quiet, thinking.

"Did... Did you fall asleep and dream, too?" she asked, noting the haunted look on his face as he opened his mouth. He paused, nodded. "Tell me."

Returning the favor of trust that she'd given him in sharing her nightmare, he told her everything that had occurred. The look of horror on her face was evident, but she listened the whole time. At one point, she took his hand to calm him. His shakes seemed to get more pronounced as he relived it. She was sorry to have asked, to make him picture it all again.

He let go of her hand and let his head fall into his palms.

He was so, so afraid.

So when Ariadne hugged him, he let her. Looking for comfort and security in anything he could get.


	7. Saito: Nothing to Fear

If the world was a stage and the people merely players, then Saito's life had become an unending theatrical display that not even Shakespeare could have imagined.

For what seemed like days now, he'd been sitting in a blackened theatre, frozen in place, watching the men on stage exaggerate, dance around, and emotionally recite oaths of love, hate and revenge. All while the invisible audience around him roared in laughter and cheered on the faceless performers.

He had a feeling the performers' faces were there, painted on in bright vibrancy, since the ghosts around him acted in such a manner that was only appropriate for the pretty faces. But he saw nothing but blank skin.

As if crevices had been filled in and bumps were smoothed away.

Canvases for any artist to build upon.

His secrets, his past, were on display for the world to see. He never thought his life could make a good  _sewamono_ but he was proven wrong. He could feel the packed room press down on him, the heat from the invisible bodies encasing him and weighing him down.

Whenever he tried moving, leaving, it was like ropes made of barbed wire were holding him in his seat. Like a brace kept his head in place and always looking to the stage. Hands would hold his shoulders down, pressing their fingers, heavy like lead, into his skin, seemingly trying to get down to the bone.

And now the first act was to begin again.

The smallest actor, who was portraying his own child-like innocent, pranced around the stage, reciting his lessons from his father. Behind him, unknown, two actors paying his parents, fought violently, the scuffles from their sandals drowned out by dramatic drums. With one final strike, his "mother" fell, and the "father" wept openly over her body. The little boy ran to them, hearing the wails and began copying his father until the servants came and carried the body away.

In the pit of his stomach, he felt a sense of numbing dread.

Like his subconscious was saving him from these faceless people.

Demons in the form of people, sucking out is soul through his memories.

The next act started.

The little boy was grown nearly.

Sitting outside with a prettily-dressed girl. Lovers, enraptured with themselves.

Caresses, whispers. Giggles, secret smiles.

And the world coming and crashing down.

Just as it always must for him.

Tragically, as audience members take their cue to shout to the actors, the young woman takes her life. Irrevocably changing her sweetheart with her last gasp of breath.

And for a moment, which made his struggle against his bonds, Saito thought he could see tears fall down the actor's blank face. The mask washing away. And he could see his mouth, seemingly pulled down for ever.

Act three featured himself, an adult and running his successful company. Gathering his empire, his wife (who he was fond of, but she could never truly be  _her._  She knew this.), and his accomplished plot against the Fischer corporation.

The invisible audience pressing down on him hissed and booed, screamed and shouted at the fantastical feats of the people he had employed.

The fourth act made him tremble, the restraints cutting into his skin and blood  _drip drip_ quickly to the carpeted floor.

He wanted to scream, but his mouth felt full of cotton and acid. Like bitter cotton candy that made his tongue curl and want to writhe and hide in his throat. The ghosts around him would press around him, hold him down more, covering ever inch of his body.

And he would choke and and hyperventilate and scream more, unable to breathe, see.

Saito would black out and then wake up soon after.

Once more, staring at the scene of the little boy, weeping over his dead mother's shell.

No matter how hard he tried, he always ended up at the start.

Blocked.

Afraid. Too afraid to see how the final acts would end.


	8. The Book of Revelations

Things were only getting worse for himself and his colleagues.

Several other reports of chilling nightmares had reached him and one by one, he collected the details, mapping them out in his neat script. Once he'd seen his hellish nightmare come to fruition and more tumbled in through connections, it was obvious someone was leeching on their deepest fears and distracting them.

But the biggest question still eluded an answer.

Who would want to terrify so many people?

And what did it accomplish?

Preying upon people's families, their strengths, weaknesses and twisting them into horrid caricatures of fear and self-loathing. It was driving many talented extractors, architects, and thieves, among others, to the brink of insanity.

Two had already committed suicide.

They'd buckled under the pressure of days without sleep and living with the constant shadow looming in the dreaded corner of their eye. Jaded people who'd barely barely bat an eyelash at violence had become afraid of their neighbor's lawn mowers and become enraged at the noise of humanity and cities.

He was running on three days no sleep now.

Because at this point, the only way they could block out the constant nightmares was by going under, sharing dreams. Which was dangerously addictive.

He'd originally recommended four days, but he soon found it made Ariadne flirt with the edge, Eames testy, and he'd become sloppy. The rate they were going was pushing it, but there was nothing else to be done.

Ariadne, afraid of the addiction, had refused the practice at first, saying she could just get used to the nights of ache. She soon found nothing could numb the pain the fears caused.

"It's almost worse than the physical injuries we get in dreams," she said one evening, not bothering to conceal the shiver of revulsion in her voice.

Their close-knit group became more so, taking small comfort in solidarity. Cobb would phone from time to time, checking in with the others.

"You all need to make sure not to let this affect your personal lives. Don't let the people outside the business in on what's bothering you. Try to act normal."

Later, Ariadne had made an astute remark. After he'd hung up, of course.

"Must be another experience thing for him... I feel bad for his kids."

They'd all stayed silent for a moment. None of them had really thought about the ripple effects like the ones Cobb warned of. They were all independent adults who, for the most part, lived for their jobs and selves, rather than others.

And now, at five am, Arthur found himself at his desk, a small lamp on to provide a soft glow for his aching eyes. For the last three hours, he'd been trying to compile the scenarios that lead up to each first experience.

For himself, he'd been watching over Ariadne and Eames as they'd slept. In those nine hours, he'd only had interaction with the two and the whimpering hotel personnel; their entire encounter lasting under two minutes.

Eames had been entertaining a favorite woman of his back home and had woken up alone. Something, he had said, that was odd. She'd never left willingly before.

Dom had taken his children to the beach for the day and let them enjoy the weather before they had to go to school a few weeks time from then. They'd then gone to a favorite restaurant if theirs before heading home.

Ariadne's was the most curious.

She'd had no contact with anyone the day before, other than meeting with the Dean of her university about graduation. She'd gone from her apartment, to the meeting, and back, the entire venture lasting under two hours. She'd made herself a light dinner and watched a few movies before turning in to what was soon to be a night of adrenaline and nerves.

The many hours of alert studying and attentiveness started weighing heavily on his back suddenly. The spot between his shoulders knotted up and he hissed in pain. Standing, he tried to stretch out the knots and think at the same time, hoping to keep his mind continuously thinking and running. For a moment, he pictured his mind as a well-oiled machine.

But suddenly, they became rusted from overuse and lack of oil and care.

Burn out.

"Why? Why? Why?" He grabbed his hair in frustration, tugging at the strands. He began to pace, staring at the pattern in the ceiling.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

What was missing? What?

Or.

Who.

"Who?"

"'Who' what?"

She let herself in and set her spare key on the table as she came into the room. Seeing her, Arthur let go of the grip he still held on his hair and dropped his arms to his side, frantic desperation oozing out of him.

All it took at this point was the small smile she always gave him.

She took his hand and nodded her head to the bedroom. Her let her lead with a sigh. She took him to the bed and gestured for him to sit. He slipped his shoes off as she deftly whipped his tie off him. He automatically laid back, waiting for her weight to join him on the mattress. He felt her smooth hand give him the familiar needle, letting him insert it.

"Are you ready?"

He nodded his assent, and turns on his side to watch her as she lays down and pushes the glowing button at the same time. They watch each others' eyes close.

She knows he'll tell her in their dream. Of his revelation.

Or the realization of damnation.


	9. Elixir of Atonement

Chemists are kept locked away.

Tucked aside like the precious family jewels. Everyone knows about us, but they're not just not quite sure where we hide.

Yes, we hide.

And people help us stay hidden. Locked away.

Most of us prefer it this way. We can create, experiment, control to our hearts' content without being interrupted often. Only by the occasional extractor who looks for something they cannot do, nor their point men. We are usually the most expendable of a team; only needed for a few hours consultation and provision.

How rare it is that these people realize they put their lives, their sanity in our fickle hands. They take for granted the serum that always puts them under, they throw caution and their minds to the wind when they dose themselves with heavier sedatives with PASIV. And the lack of care they toss into their targets!

I suppose with being a chemist and being trained in many forms of medicine, it is quite normal for me to immediately balk at the thought of their rough treatment. Very few tend to care, just as long as a trail doesn't lead back to them.

Which is why the necessity of a pure, untraceable sedative is asked of us.

This was the first thing made clear to me when I take up my post and submerge myself in this highly lucrative, highly dangerous, and no doubt criminal business. Safety and well-being, if memory serves, was somewhere along the lines of fifth.

After money, but before figuratively shaking hands, closing the done deal.

Every con in this business is vain, selfish, and full of so much pompous sense of self-entitlement.

It makes me sick.

Years ago, I'd tried to leave. And learned the hard way that it didn't pay to pack up shop when you knew so much and so many people

These things always had a way of coming back and biting one in the ass.

Unfortunately, like an oath to the bloody boy scouts or the mob, I'd sold my soul to compounds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. That is, if, at this point, I had any soul left.

Most days it was hard to tell.

So, in my own ways, I've found ways to repent.

To possible buy back, or barter for my soul in exchange.

A penance of some kind, I suppose.

But like any man, I sin.

I am filled with rage and disgust at the business that has bought my life; at the people who hire out my services.

In each of their faces, I see a demon that represents a deadly sin. Eyes that are void of emotion, waggling forked tongues, flesh that rots off, melting like it wants to escape the bones of the evil incarnate.

I cannot profess that I am prefect.

These sins take me over after each time I shake the hands of the devil, fueling me until the job is done. And then I sit with my accumulated wealth, the pride of a job well done, and more knowledge than is right for a mere man to know.

Alone.

All alone because this job holds you like a vice. You dare not bring love in, to involve someone precious to you. It destroys your relationship. Then eats away at their innocence, their mind infests until they die from the knowledge.

The knowledge kills in many forms. It does not care.

Suicide. Overwhelming disgrace. A rival hit. Revenge from another.

Or just being used as a pawn.

Which is why I get my revenge.

Just once, I will be the original sinner. I will be Lucifer and torment them.

The wicked.

And I will stop only when they have learned their lesson.

My wealth has come in handy. Instead of destroying my life, tearing down everything I try to build around me, it will serve a useful purpose. Besides gathering dust.

Instead of being the pawn, I am now the master of this game. The conductor of this orchestra.

And they will move as I dictate. Play the notes I command they play.

I want them to know dreams.

They all forgot long ago what it was like to truly dream. The dreams synthetically made by PASIV are a sham compared.

Even sweet dreams are dulled, prefabricated and processed by that poisonous sedative. They constrict the mind, feed illusions of impossibility and delusions of grandeur. Lead the user along like a seductive dance by the sweetest woman. And once you are hooked, once the fangs are secure, your imagination is gone.

Poof.

Only the strong ones really ever kept their imagination. These were usually the architects. But even they run out of steam. Especially once they became just as addicted as the other criminals in their pool of disillusions.

But, like the kind, merciful god I think, know, I can be, I can give them a sense of hope.

A place of comfort and knowing.

I gift them with the haven of PASIV.

Let it be.

If they can realize it. And find a way to not greedily suck at the tubes for the sedative they'll crave. And run out of if they go under too often.

Before I decide to forgive them and have seen they've repented, I hope to be caught. Just for the trill. I know a few who would be merciful and end it quickly.

But of course, I haven't yet fully atoned for my sins, so that thought cowers back to the shadows of my mind where it belongs.

I sit here and decide who has been forgiven and who must continue to burn in the hell that they've created for themselves. And feel shame. And elation. And guilt.

So I do another good deed for the day. And wait.


	10. Yusuf: Angel Tears

The mind was a curious thing.

Full of mysteries that most people couldn't begin to fathom.

The dark corners hid shadows and secrets like a maze and it would take humanity several lifetimes to discover just half.

So the moment Yusuf realized he was dreaming, his first thought was that he was impressed. The world his subconscious had devised was a wonder. Simple, but it spoke volumes. And ever the scholar that he was, instead of killing himself to wake up, he let his mind continue to cultivate the dreamscape.

A long, dimply lit hallway, crafted with rich, dark wood. Painted with burgundies and reds so deep, light could not escape.

Yusuf was presented with three doors, behind him, endless night leading to only God would know. A door on each of his sides and one in front, blocking his path. Heavy knockers and brass knobs adorned the carved wood. They seemed to resonate with promises and hushed secrets, like fingers of energy beckoning him.

Unsure of what he was trying to tell himself, he glided his fingers along the grooves of the left door. They were met with satin polish and slick perspiration. It groaned with the faint pressure his fingers exerted on it. A large drop of water slid down smoothly past his head, quickly making it to the bottom.

Based on what he'd been hearing, he was expecting more. Something baser. His mind wasn't a source of theatrics.

Usually.

The door opened easily, but not without a great deal of creaking, rust flaking off the hinges and into his hair. But he barely noticed. The room behind the first door was sweltering. Like August in New York City, like Mombasa. Like home. The air was thick, nearly suffocating. Immediately he found himself sweating and peeling his heavy jacket off. Dragging it along the ground, Yusuf found himself in front of a clear tank.

A body floating ethereally inside.

With the water so clear and clean, nearly invisible. It was almost as if she was hovering. Floating like a specter or angel. His angel.

His Mahira.

He just stood there, staring. Watching the water caress her, slowly moving and turning her body with the undercurrents.

Her face was a mask of accusation and hurt. Her eyes, when she turned and faced him, were blank. But also would flash with anger.

And just as the day she died, the remnants of her summer dress, frayed and stained, ripped and scrappy, hung on her bruised frame.

Yusuf's ears filled with crashing waves and the overwhelming roar of boat motors. Gulping, he choked back a sob, the waves crashing louder, pierced with slick gun shots.

The air around him closed over him like a vice, constricting painfully around his lungs and heart. His eyes pricked painfully with tears. And like a fist of her resentment, he could feel a shove. Pressure sending him back to the soaking door. Roughly, he was pushed back against it, drenching him. The water running down the wood faster as his heart rate picked up.

Turning around, Yusuf clawed at the door, desperate to escape the rounds of fire and drowning waves. If he stayed in this room much longer, he felt as if she would crawl out of the tank and cling to him, taking him back with her into the waters. Under the running water, he was able to find the doorknob and quickly turned it, throwing the door open with a shove into the hall. Behind him, the door closed with a thud.

 _Bloody hell_ , he thought. His subconscious was more of a masochist than he'd thought.  _Oh, Mahira._

Oh his knees, he stayed in the dismal hallway for an unmeasurable amount of time.

Staring.

Waiting.

For his heart to slow down.

For his breathing to even out.

For his mind to stop racing and whirling.

And for her ghost to stop seeping into his spine.

He doubted the fear that bubbled in his stomach would ever settle. Only grow and slowly become infested with a dank foreboding.

Gathering his courage, he stood and shuffled to the center door. Ice cold. Though it was made of wood, it felt like it was of steel, standing for centuries in the arctic. His fingertips tingled and became numb almost immediately on contact. Despite its frozen appearance, it was silent and smooth upon opening.

The room was empty.

Black, only lit by the light from the hallway.

The walls were close together, more resembling a closet, especially compared to the cavernous void that held his Mahira. He dared to only take a single step in; he didn't want the door to close and to lose the light.

Even though the room was shallow, it was almost as if the light chased away the impeding shadows. Like complete darkness meant it would all turn into a black hole, a vacuum of endless power. Not only was it empty of light or space, it seemed to suck up sound. He couldn't even hear his breathing, still slightly shallow. Or his pulse, which had been thrumming in his head.

Immediately he turned around and left, slamming the door.

A sound like thousands of shattering mirrors echoed in the hall.

The final door hummed.

It stood looming over him as he faced the corner, dreading to come face to face with it. If Mahira was to his left, then...

She was on his right.

Just as it should be.

He always said.

He palmed the knob and instantly pulled his hand back. Searing hot, it left blisters on his skin. Short of stripping, he had nothing he could protect his hand against the red-hot metal, so he quickly gripped it and threw the door open, letting it bang against whatever wall the room held.

The basement to his home, to his chemist laboratory. But the beds were empty, like their occupants had moved on. To the next life or in their lives on earth. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

His footsteps echoed, harsh in his ears compared to the nothingness of the last room.

The bed in the very back, partitioned away from the others by a curtain still had its occupant. Who stared up at Yusuf, watching him as he walked closer to her. The needle in her arm was still anchored in, the PASIV running, pumping sedative in her veins.

And she still stared.

"Saira."

His little girl stared at him with her mother's eyes, blinking when he said her name. She licked her lips and let out a deep breath. Turned her head away from him.

Feeling like his heart had dropped in his chest, he watched her breathing slow down, to the rate of a sleeper.

Like how he always saw her.

Her hand reached out for him. To which he eagerly took, startled by her strength as she pulled him closer to her bed. A little girl of her eight years could not have this kind of strength. Her fingers curled around his, digging into the skin. The other shot out from her side and pinned him with the PASIV needle.

The haziness of dreaming started clouding his eyes. And he was terrified of the dream she wanted to share with him. He knew exactly what it would be.

All three of them on their small boat in the ocean. A family vacation. Mahira, beautiful in the sunlight with her new summer dress and six-year-old Saira running about with her kite, giggling. Innocent.

They were happy.

And then they caught up to him, despite the arrogant extractor's promise to make sure he was 'safe from the mark.'

Safe indeed.

A motor boat in the distance gaining speed.

Saira's shriek as she lost her toy in surprise.

Gunfire. So many at once, showering down on them. Like a firing squad in the waves.

Mahira scrambling to protect their daughter, screaming for her to come to her  _quickly, now!_

Saira falling to the deck, hit by a bullet in her shoulder, crying for her papa.  _Papa, please!_

Because she was determined to get to Saira, the bullets shredded through Mahira, tearing her clothes to pieces and disfiguring her once perfect skin.

Yusuf could feel the two bullets hit his legs, making him buckle. All over again. The ghosts that haunted him most days real once more.

And he could do nothing but watch as his wife's body tipped into the salty ocean, staining the blue water with her spilled blood. The speedboats left, leaving behind a ripped silence, punctured by Saira's crying and his panting. All he could do was try to crawl to his daughter and wait.

He knew the police would be there any moment.

Too late. Just like before.

Saira looked up at him. With the eyes not of that day, but of the present. Jaded, knowing.

Because by the time they'd recovered and left the hospital, just the two of them, she knew so much more. She didn't understand it all, but she knew that, in the end, it had all taken away her mother. And that her  _papa_  was to blame.

And Saira made him live through those first nights after they came home as they shared her dream. The nights where she screamed in horror instead of sleeping. The days where she sat in a chair, staring at nothing, eyes wide. She would throw fits when he came to talk to her, to hug her, comfort her. She wanted nothing to do with him, with life.

Then he decided to take her to his workshop.

To the room with the others who lived disconnected from reality and made their own, together. He showed her the silver briefcase and explained what it did. Told her, if she wanted, she could sleep. Live in a world where her mother was still there, if she wished. Where things were the way they'd once been.

"I'd prefer if you stayed with me. I love you very much, Saira. But I want you to be happy. I will do whatever you want, as long as you are happy." He held her hand tight. The only contact she really allowed him. And only when they left the house.

He stood with her as she stared at the machine for minutes upon minutes. Longer than any child would have had the patience for. He could practically hear the jumbled thoughts clicking into place for her.

When she started crying, he knew the choice she'd made.

And for the first time in nearly eight months, she hugged him, held him close.

Crawled into the bed, waited.

As he hooked her up and checked the correct dosage, she whispered,

"Can I come back to you, papa? If... If I miss you?"

Yusuf wiped away a tear that got caught in his eyelashes. "Always, my love." He kissed her cheek and stroked the top of her head. He held her hand as the sedative slowly started to take effect. Keeping his eyes locked on hers as they fluttered shut.

And Saira ripped the needle from him painfully.

Falling over, Yusuf panted as he came out of the dream, tears falling onto the dirty floor under him. He wept hard for the first time in months. He sincerely hoped Saira didn't truly dream of her mother's death. No child should dream of that for decades at a time.

He meant for her to dream of her mother, growing up with her, just as it should have been.

Now he wanted out.

Out of this dream and back to reality. He needed to visit his daughter. He needed reality.

Standing, he glanced at Saira, who was back to watching him with wide eyes. He wouldn't do it here. Even if this wasn't really her. He'd hurt her enough once, just once. Even Dream Saira deserved more.

So he left the room with its door made of the walls of Hell and walked back to the door made of angel's tears.

It was always how he thought their tears would be like. Ice cold. Because angels shouldn't really be crying, and to make them cry was a sin.

He opened it, and walked into the black unknown, waiting for the drop off, the kick, the slaughter, the suffocation. Whatever awaited him.

– –

When he woke up, he fell from his chair.

And wept just like he had at Saira's side.

He'd done so many things, was afraid of so much more.

Yet, he chose to torture himself with things that could not be changed. Of course his mind would not pick on the present or future. Only the past, set and locked for all eternity.

So when he took up his ring of keys, shuffled down the steps, he surprised the watchman by going to the very back. But the man never said anything, just cast a pitying glance and went back to his papers.

Yusuf pulled the curtain back and stared down at her. His little girl.

Who was awake and pulling out the needle from her hand.

"Papa?"


	11. Closing In

Ariadne was busy cleaning her apartment when there was a loud knock on her door.

At first, she hadn't heard it, drowned out by the music from her stereo. She only noticed when she went to take the trash out; she went head first into a broad chest, which startled a yelp from her.

"Hello, there." Eames grinned down at her as he leaned against the door frame, at ease. His eyes darted down to the trash bag that she'd dropped in fright. "Sorry about that."

"Eames! What...what are you doing here?" Ariadne stooped down to pick up bits of trash that had escaped.

The man grinned, but clutched at his chest as if hurt. "Was I not who you expected? I know I'm not any ol' point man, but I would think a man of my  _many_  skills would suffice?" He faked injured when she smacked him on the chest.

"What's going on? I thought we weren't due to sleep again until Thursday? Thank you," she added when he took the bag from her.

"We need to take a vacation. To Mombasa, you and I." He paused, taking in her incredulous look. "Arthur's already left. He told me we needed to meet him immediately."

Ariadne snorted. "And it's your responsibility to fetch me?"

"No, darling. I volunteered for that." He winked. "Now, go gather some things quick. I'll toss the rubbish and come back up here."

Ariadne turned back into her apartment, leaving the door open a crack for her associate, and went to fetch her I.D.s and passport. While she dug under a precarious pile of sketch pads, Eames had returned and asked her where a small bag she could use would be. Distracted, she waved towards her room. "In the closet, on the floor probably."

It didn't occur to her that he would snoop. Until he came to the hallway holding up some of her lingerie.

"My, my Ari. Didn't know you had it in you, hm?"

"Eames!" She scrambled up, ignoring the landslide of papers and snatched the silk away from him. She shoved him towards the kitchen. "I'll get my clothes. Just...guard my apartment."

She ignored his chuckles at her pink-tinged face and threw random bits of clean clothes in the bag he'd managed to find. Stalking to her bathroom to grab her toiletries, she called out, "Why Mombasa?"

His voice came from the doorway once more, watching her throw her things in her bag. "Mombasa is where Yusuf lives. And I'm known to haunt the fair city from time to time."

"So Arthur's worried about how we haven't heard from him?"

The forger's eyes narrowed slightly. "Something like that. Not only that he's one of the few we haven't heard from in this giant clusterfuck of a mystery, but...well, the clues sort of point to a chemist. The signs are there."

Ariadne zipped her bag up and tucked her paperwork in her purse. Slipping on shoes, she met Eames stare. "Do you think Yusuf is doing this?"

"There are a lot of theories floating around. Who knows?"

"But what do you think?"

She came to stand in front of him, bag dangling from her hand, waiting.

"There are a lot of things we don't know about Yusuf. To be honest, I know the most about him compared to everyone else in our little group. I know more than most in our entire community. But the fraction of what I know about him couldn't even be compared to what I know about you. Which, to be honest, isn't a lot. Unfortunately."

She looked down, contemplating his words. Biting her lip, she said, "He's brilliant. But, that's worrisome, isn't it?"

"Ooh, yes. Indeed. Now, let's get going. Our flight leaves soon!" He tugged her towards her apartment door, barely letting her lock it on their way out.

–

"This is Saito's airline, isn't it?" Ariadne deadpanned, settling into her seat behind Eames. Once more, first class. Only one other sat in their section, an older gentleman who immediately engrossed himself with a conversation on the plane's phone in front of him.

Eames nodded. "Saito was also affected in all of this, which raises alarms. No other previous employers or marks have been involved. That we know of. It takes a strong man to admit what scares him and to admit that to other people—near strangers, especially." Ariadne wondered when Saito had called and mentioned this and voiced her puzzlement to Eames. "Cobb got a call from him maybe two weeks ago. Said it had happened three days before he'd called. We hadn't thought much on it until I noticed he was the oddball... Well, him and you."

"Me?" Her voice hitched slightly.

"You," he whispered for effect. "You are very green to this business still. You've done two small extraction jobs with Arthur and others since that bloody inception, but you know nothing, really. Your jobs have been cake, since then. You're not jaded or hardened by all of this. Which makes it curious as to why someone would target you, beyond association. And to be honest, that's all they have on you is the guilt upon association."

Ariadne leaned back in her seat, thinking. She barely heard the pilot's voice, and ignored the attendant, who came by to make sure everyone was seated and following the monotonous rules. It had been less than a year since the inception of Robert Fischer, but compared to the lengthy and impressive lists that Eames and the others had, she was very much new to everything. Her last two jobs were simplistic one layer dreams that were set in equally simplistic minds.

And she hadn't been allowed in the marks' minds.

There was no Cobb to guilt trip those times and Arthur had refused. Right off the bat, before telling her beyond that there was work to be had.

Once the seat belt sign dimmed, she unbuckled and slunk up behind Eames, who was accepting champagne from the attendant. She took her own drink and leaned in close to whisper, "How long have you been doing this, Eames?"

"What? Chasing after possible crazed people who are invading my subconscious? Not long, just a handful of weeks."

She stared at him, trying not to crack a smile. Despite how funny she'd found his quip, she was tired and flying rarely left her in a joking mood.

"Sorry, I forgot flying doesn't agree with you. About eight or nine years. The first few are hazy. Those were...wild days. But I was certainly older than you, m'dear. To which, I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"Don't get me wrong, I am very glad to have met you. You're a brilliant architect, both in reality and in the dreamscape, and you're a wonderful laugh to have around. But, it's a bit disappointing to see that you had to be dragged into this with so much...youthful promise." He paused at her confused look. "I'm terrible at explaining this. A year ago, if you'd said no to Cobb's proposal of a 'mysterious job', you'd most likely be in a healthy relationship, finishing your degree, and already studying with a prominent construction company that could propel you to the stars of architecture."

"But instead, I'm single, being haunted by my subconscious, and taking the odd illegal high-end job?"

He nodded, "Instead, you're stuck. You're in this for life. You will be able to take normal building jobs, but it won't be the same... Wait, you're single?"

Ariadne bristled. "Is this really the time to talk about this?"

"What better time? I have you trapped thousands of miles in the sky, dear." She gave him a sour look. "I thought you and our darling Arthur were attached at the hip."

Ariadne narrowed her eyes at Eames seemingly innocent smile. "Not that it's any of your business, but he and I have never been dating. We're colleagues. Like you and I." She took a swallow of the champagne she'd nearly forgotten about, feeling as though she was going to need the alcohol if Eames was going to nag her the whole flight.

"Did he break your heart? Should I rough him up a bit when this is all done?" He winked, grinning bigger when he saw her lips purse.

"Nothing happened. I look up to him, like a brother. Now stop it."

He sighed dramatically. "You're no fun when we fly. We still have nearly another four hours to go."

Ariadne stared at him a moment, considering. "Since you've butted into my life a bit, mind if I ask you something?"

Eames thought about it a moment, choosing his words carefully. "Depends. Why not try and see?"

She nodded, accepting his answer. She'd expected nothing more from him. Using a measured tone, she asked, "Have you ever impersonated Cobb or the others on the job? With them or on others without them?"

There was surprise on his face, though cleverly hidden. He smirked, "Well, that's something I wasn't expecting. I've done Cobb a few times, working with him. Used it to confuse a mark. Once, I did Arthur when I was on a solo job." He cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. "It kind of caught up to him a few months later, unfortunately. Which, in turn, made him thoroughly and royally ticked off at me..."

"He beat your ass, didn't he?" Ariadne's grin was wide.

He sat up in his seat, brushing off invisible dust from his sleeves. "Just...just the once. Though, I did deserve it, I suppose. But those were in the early days. I don't really do it anymore. Not unless I have to. It's fairly uncomfortable with that very person in the same dream and you knowing them in more than just a casual way."

Ariadne nodded, understanding the possible complications. "You haven't done me, have you?"

"No, love. I haven't had the opportunity to do you yet," he said, chuckling.

Ariadne blushed lightly, but stood by her words.

Two and a half hours into their flight, Ariadne found herself drowsy, which made her heart race. This was not the place to take a nap and wake up screaming. Usually, she tried to sleep on flights that were longer than an hour, but there was no room for rest. Not when she reminded herself why she was flying to Kenya in the first place. She took a peek at Eames, who was reading a newspaper with rapt interest.

"Yes, Ariadne?"

 _How did..._

"I have eyes on the back of my head..." He turned to face her and noticed her drooping eyes. "Oh, dear."

"Yeah, that's...an understatement."

Eames looked around before taking his eyes back to the woman. "Is waking up...bad? I mean, in case you do give in?"

"I usually scream while I'm sleeping and then wake up bawling." She hid her eyes behind her hand, looking down.

"Well..." he stared at her hand, which blocked the sight of her face from him, making him frown. "That's terrible."

Ariadne looked up, startled at his seemingly callous remark. While she hadn't been expecting pity, she sure hadn't expected an offhand generic comment. Her eyes met his teasing ones, which made her smack him in the arm. "Ass."

He grabbed her hand and held it close. "Sorry. I don't do all that squishy, warm stuff that normal people do. If you ever get to know me, you'll see I really am an ass. But, this whole situation is completely fucked up. Which, in turn, is bringing out parts of me I didn't know existed."

"You're saying you're a complete rogue, who's only out for himself, then?" Ariadne tugged at her hand, but Eames didn't let go. She didn't fight him too hard on it.

"Precisely."

She leaned in close to the Englishman, staring him in the eyes. Affecting a small smile, she squeezed his hand and whispered, "You're full of shit."

Quickly, she tugged her hand out of his and leaned back, pulling the sketch book she'd managed to throw in her bag out and quickly flipped the pages to something she'd been working on for class.

Turning around, Eames stared ahead of him for a moment before muttering, "Well, I'll be damned..." and settling back to his paper, suddenly hyper-aware of Ariadne humming quietly behind him.

They landed in the small airport just outside Mombasa and traveled by taxi to the hotel Arthur had told Eames about before leaving. They checked in quickly and headed up to the room, finding Arthur in the middle of a phone call, pacing from wall to wall. When he noticed them come in, he looked at them in acknowledgment and went back to his seemingly heated conversation.

"Not even a proper welcome," Eames muttered jokingly, glaring at the suited man. Ariadne hushed him and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to ignore the weight of travel hanging on her shoulders. When she felt the large hand of her travel companion give a gentle squeeze on her shoulder, she looked up at him and gave him a tired smile. "Don't worry, Ari. I'm sure before we do too much, we can try to give you a kip with the PASIV."

"Unfortunately, we can't. Not yet," Arthur ended his phone call and strode over to the two. He looked down at Ariadne, who blinked up at him slowly. "We need to go visit Yusuf. Trying to catch him there might be tricky. He knows we're here."

"What do you mean 'he knows'? Is that good or bad?" Eames asked, incredulous. "Are we really going in there assuming he's our guy? I thought you were all about  _specificity_." He made the air quotes in a mocking tone, which Arthur chose to ignore.

"We don't know much of anything, Eames. If you recall, your spectacular sleuthing skills didn't turn up much and we've got some of the others watching him. He hasn't made any signs of moving or leaving, but they're sure he knows we're here."

Ariadne thought a moment. "Who does he think is here? Just you? You and Eames? Cobb?"

Arthur rubbed the back of his neck as he answered her. "He knows I'm here. He might think Cobb is, we're not sure. He knows about Eames, but we're under the assumption that he's thought Eames was here the entire time since he likes to hang out here."

"So I've heard," Ariadne said, giving Eames a side glance.

"What?" he said indignantly. "The culture here is wonderful, thank you."

She shook her head. "I didn't say anything."

"Anyway," Arthur sighed, "we need to get down there. Can you take us there, Eames? You took Cobb there last time."

"Of course. Let's leave our things here and get going, then. Ari, don't forget your purse, love. Can't leave your identification laying around." Eames nodded his head to the bed, where her bag was left. She quickly shuffled over and grabbed it before joining them out the door.

Both men gave each other worried glaces as she walked ahead of them to the lobby.


	12. The Truth Will Set You Free

"I thought you knew the way," Arthur said to Eames' back, following the man and a local through the crowded streets. He glanced next to him, making sure Ariadne hadn't gotten lost. The woman, while having a somewhat far-off look on her face, was with them, trying to stay alert to the overwhelming sounds and happenings around them.

"I do, Arthur. But sometimes, getting lost in a place like this isn't ideal. Better to plan ahead." Eames glanced behind him and back. "Besides, the boy's nice. He's a good kid." A moment later, their entourage stopped in front of a plain building, waiting as Eames paid the boy off. When he left, they somewhat eagerly entered, all silently glad to be out of the heat.

Darkly lit, cool, simply decorated—that was to say not decorated at all—the entrance to Yusuf's place was very utilitarian, giving off an air of not quite abandonment. But, rather, humble workings. Something, Ariadne assumed as she followed the men, the chemist had done purposely to throw off any suspicion and keep unwanted people from hounding him.

"I did not think you'd bring our Ariadne."

Yusuf's voice guided them around the corner to his room full of dusty bottles and paper-littered desk. He sat behind it, hands tented, face creased in tiredness. Next to him, a little girl slept, curled in a cushy chair, dark hair spread wild.

"Yes, well, you weren't coming to us, were you?" Eames said darkly, his voice quiet as he glanced at the girl.

"No, no. I cannot leave now," he whispered, gesturing for them to sit. "We can talk here as long as we keep our voices down. I do not wish to disturb Saira's sleep."

Ariadne took the seat set off from the others. It enabled her to watch them all in once glance. She had a feeling she needed to keep her eyes on all of them. "Is she...your daughter?" she asked, eyes glued to her.

Yusuf nodded, but directed their conversation to a different topic. "What can I do for all of you?"

"We've been trying to contact you for weeks now. Where have you been?" Arthur asked, face a blank mask.

"I've been busy, mostly. You know how I am. The last week or so, I've been preoccupied," his eyes flashed quickly to Saira before darting back to the point man. "What did you need?"

Eames spoke up next. "Can we please get to the point? I have the feeling we could be here for hours, shooting the shit before we get down to business." He paused a moment, reading Arthur's face, before continuing. "Yusuf, we've got someone poisoning the minds of our community. Bringing nightmares to those who haven't dreamed in years, scarring us with fear. It all points to a chemist, honestly."

"What makes you think this?"

"There has been nothing in any of the circumstances, save one or two, that could indicate anything else. And even in those isolated incidents, there is even some evidence of chemicals, really. Only drugs could induce these reactions in the mind to bring back dreaming—nightmares—really."

The room was quiet a moment. "You think it was me?" Yusuf kept his voice neutral and his eyes away from their faces.

"We don't want to. But the fact that you've been unavailable and we haven't heard any news from you..." Ariadne said softly, a frown on her face. She hadn't planned on speaking, but she wanted him to tell her it wasn't him.

Yusuf watched her a moment before answering. "I've been hearing what's going on with everyone. And I'm incredibly sorry that we lost several to the madness. I had one as well, just once, though." He looked to Arthur and Eames, staring quietly.

"The fact that you dreamed means nothing to me, Yusuf," Arthur said firmly. "Any good chemist worth his salt and dignity knows to test his products on himself at some point."

Ariadne watched the silent stare shared between Yusuf and Arthur, eyes wide. She caught Eames glance, internally wincing at the hard look on his face. She could see he was drawing his own conclusions between their conversation and silent looks.

Yusuf let his head fall in his hand, sighing. "Yes. That's very true."

A beat of silence.

"So, then..." Eames began, but stopped when the chemist spoke again.

"I was commissioned to make the compound. I was not told who it would be used on and I did not ask. I was told by my employer to not test the formula on myself. But, naturally, I couldn't do that. I kept a single dosage and tried it. But not until much later. I was very cowardly." He sighed again. "I was also asked to mix them with things, hide them in clever ways that you would not find. Things that could not point to me. My guilt would not allow this and I sloppily left clues. Did you find them?"

Eames lifted his bag from the floor, placing it on his lap. "In a way. You left a few loopholes of doubt." He pulled out an empty shampoo bottle, a half-empty bottle of cologne, a prescription container, and a flask. He looked to Ariadne. "Pull it out of your bag, Ariadne."

She gave him a bewildered look. "Pull what?"

"I put it in your bag earlier. You'll see it."

Ariadne unzipped her purse and made a noise in the back of her throat. "Eames, you went through my garbage?" She pulled out an expired air freshener, only a drop or two of amber liquid inside, and passed it to Arthur's waiting hands.

"I did. You made it very easy when you handed the bag to me. Thank you, by the way." Eames motioned for Arthur to set the plastic on Yusuf's desk with the other items. "You spiked our daily belongings with your concoctions. Each day, we would use them and each night, we would get our nightmares."

"It would have been clever, if the circumstances weren't what they are," Yusuf smiled to himself weakly.

Arthur nodded minutely. "Who hired you?"

"They brought me these things. Didn't say who owned them, who normally bought them. Just told me to find a way to mix the sedatives in without arousing suspicion." Yusuf ignored Arthur a moment. "Let me guess? Ariadne is obviously the air freshener, Cobb was the pills—his is obvious, the poor man. The flask, I remember, is very much early post-war Japanese... This cologne is yours, Eames, and this shampoo must be yours, Arthur? You didn't bring all the other items?"

"We would have needed a suitcase for that, Yusuf. Answer the question," Arthur nearly hissed.

"What will you do with me?" Yusuf turned to Saira, the little girl still snoozing. "She's very tired. She's been under for a long time. Rarely came up. She's trying to quit," he whispered, petting her hair with gentle care.

"She was under...with the PASIV?" Ariadne asked, shocked. Yusuf nodded.

"Many things have scarred her in reality. She chose to go to safety. I presume, anyway. I wanted what was best for her, whatever would make her happy."

Ariadne kept her eyes trained on the girl. "But...but she's just a little girl!"

"I wouldn't normally condone using it on a child, either, Ariadne. But...reality became too much for her to handle. I indirectly made life unbearable for her innocent mind to comprehend. But now she has chosen to try and forgive me. Something I don't deserve."

"Who hired you?" Arthur demanded once more, breaking into their conversation.

"They're very good at persuasion. They convinced me that I was right in making this sort of drug. That, whoever was on the receiving end deserved it. That I was cheated. They preyed on my guilt, the resentment in the back of my mind. The petty side, shared with baser emotions. My logical side made sure I didn't torture you too much, though. I made sure you could all try to rest with the PASIVs, if you thought of them. That was my gift to you."

"Yusuf, friend..." Eames started, edging closer to the man. "Tell us who hired you."

Yusuf watched them, bringing himself back to his desk and pulling out a pen. Silently, he wrote on a scrap of paper, folded it, and handed it to Arthur. "What will you do with me?"

The silence that followed his question, laced with barely concealed panic, was unbearable to Ariadne. She squirmed in her seat, unsure. She had no idea what would happen next, what would running through her associates' minds. Her brain told her that most situations called for his death, like the movies. But this was very much real life and she knew them all personally. It was one thing to fill her face with popcorn and watch an actor pretend to die by firing squad and another to watch a friend die by other friend's hand.

"I would very much like to disappear," Yusuf said, looking at his daughter. "The reason she and I are the way we are is because of my hobby. I would like to start fresh, to rebuild our relationship without the complications of crime and poisons."

"Yusuf, can you shut down your laboratory and get off the grid, out of Mombasa, within the next seventy-two hours?" Eames tented his fingers together, placing them on his lips contemplatively. Arthur's face was impassive, but they could all see the wheels turning behind his dark eyes.

"I...I believe so. It is just us, here. We've no one else, so no one should be able to find us."

"Then go," Arthur demanded harshly. "Start over. Don't ever come back into the community again, don't contact any of us. Begin again with your daughter. She doesn't deserve to grow up in an environment like this. It's no place for children. We won't tell the others it was you. Most have other suspects, to be honest. But for all intent and purpose, after we leave here, you're dead." He stood, both Eames and Ariadne following suit.

Before they walked out, Yusuf called out, "You should all be able to sleep now, if you've stopped using these products. No dosage means no drug in your system. At least, any dreams you have wouldn't be drug-induced. But they shouldn't have healed the parts of your brain that cause you to dream."

The men walked out without another word, Ariadne whispered a small "thank you", leaving Yusuf alone with his daughter.

Rubbing his face with his palms, he turned to Saira, who, not surprisingly, was watching him with half-lidded eyes. "How long were you awake?"

"Just a little bit," she whispered, yawning. Sitting up straighter, she asked, "Are we leaving?"

He nodded. "Yes, love. Anywhere in the world, where would you like to go?"

Saira wrung her hands together, nervous. "Um, Austrila."

"Australia?" Yusuf corrected. She nodded. "Well, I'll see what I can do, shall I?"

– –

None of them spoke until they got back to their hotel.

"Are we going to visit that person now?" Ariadne asked, glancing at the paper that Arthur held a tight grip on.

None of them had glanced at the writing yet.

He shook his head, inserting the key to their door and swinging it open. "We'll wait. There are more important things to do now."

"Like what?" Eames asked, shaking off his jacket and fishing out a bottle of water from their refrigerator.

Arthur nodded his head at Ariadne, who stood staring out the window to the busy street outside. "She needs to sleep."

Eames paused, then nodded. "Very true."

They waited for Ariadne's denial, or even acquiesce, but she just continued to stare as if she couldn't hear them.

"Ari!" Eames called, walking over to her. Startled, she looked over to the two men.

"What?"

Arthur frowned at her. "You need to sleep. You're not even functioning properly. When was the last time you went under the PASIV?"

She thought a moment. "Um, Saturday night?" She counted it out in her head. "So, four days?"

"When did that plug in run out?" he asked as Eames tugged her to the bed.

"Two days ago, I think."

"Then you should sleep fine without the PASIV," he stated, crossing his arms.

Ariadne let out a squawk of protest when Eames shoved her onto the comforter. "Hey!"

"Sleep," he said as Arthur went to the small sitting room in the suit. "Arthur and I are going to make some phone calls and the like while you rest," he finished gently.

"What if Yusuf was wrong? I can't keep seeing that every time I close my eyes," her voiced cracked a touch, her hands wringing together quickly.

Eames face softened. "Ari, Arthur and I are here for you if that does happen. But Yusuf's a smart bloke. He knows he stuff." He grabbed her hands, not only to comfort her, but for his own sanity. The nervous habit was driving him mad. "Think of happy things. Think of me!" He winked.

Ariadne let out a stressed chuckle. "I'm so tired. And you know I'm loopy when I find you're funny like that."

"I, ma'am, am offended," he mocked a shot to the chest. "Please sleep. Once you're rested, we can hopefully leave Mombasa and get on the trail of this mystery villain."

"Villain, oh lord. I feel like we're in a Batman movie now."

"That's the spirit!" He gripped her hands gently and stood. "We'll be in the other room. Sleep well."

She nodded to him and slipped off her shoes. Dully, she could feel the excitement starting to roll through her. She'd never really been excited to sleep before. Not like this. It was exhilarating in a way. The thought of dreamless sleep. But it also made her sad. Not all dreams were bad. She hoped that she would at least have the opportunity to have one more pleasant dream before they were gone for good.

Without bothering to turn off the light or shut the curtains, she flopped back and was out before she could finish her yawn.

– –

"She's asleep," Eames said ten minutes later, shutting the bedroom door.

Arthur nodded from his spot on the couch, laptop open, the light glaring harshly on his face. "This...isn't going to be pleasant."

Eames settled in the chair on the point man's side, toying with his now empty water bottle. "I don't imagine it will. Which is why I leave it to you to make the phone call."

"Thanks. How kind of you," Arthur said acidly. Eames nodded in acknowledgment.

They both looked down to the small black cell phone sitting on the table in front of them. Unconsciously, they both leaned away from it a hair, like it would bite. Or it was emitting radioactive waves.

Eames was certain fire would shoot from it at some point during the call.

"Ready, mate?" the forger asked.

Arthur ignored him, steeling himself to dial the familiar number.

Each number was like a hit, making them wince.

They couldn't hear each other breath, the silence roaring in their ears.

"Hello?"

"Cobb, we have to talk."


	13. It's A Bit Sticky Now

Dom Cobb snapped his cell phone shut with a sigh.

Tossing it on the table, he sat and stared out the window, thinking. Arthur and the others had found the source. But the cost at his own soul was cutting. There wasn't any way he could truly mention it to his kids and the thought of bringing it up to anyone other than the others who were suffering made his queasy.

He needed to call Miles.

Just as he reached for his discarded phone, it rang shrilly, vibrating on the wood surface. Brows knitted, he quickly answered it. "Arthur? Is there something else?"

"Dom, it's me."

"Miles? I was just about to call you. What's going on?" His eyes darted around for the kids, but he realized they were still at school. "I've got something we need to discuss."

"Dom," Miles choked. "Can it wait? You and the kids need to get over here, now. It's Josephine."

A shot ran down his spine as his father-in-law spoke. "What about her?" he asked cautiously. Alarms were ringing in his head.

"She's... Please, just get here so the kids can see her one last time?"

"One...last... Oh god," Dom's mouth became dry in horror. "We'll be there soon." He hung up and went to their room to collect some random clothing.

Scenarios of what had happened raced through his mind.

He hoped the would get there in time before...

He also hoped Arthur and Eames had nothing to do with this.

– –

"You're much more pleasant this go around, Ariadne." Eames sipped his drink as he looked across the aisle at her.

"Maybe because I was able to sleep for roughly six hours of natural sleep for the first time in over a month, Eames." Ariadne frowned at him. "But I still reserve the right to be moody. I hate flying."

He reached over and patted her hand. "I know, dear. You should sleep more now."

She scowled, glancing at Arthur who sat next to her working on his laptop. "I can't. I'm keyed up now. Where are we even going?"

"Back to France," muttered Arthur. "Actually, Paris. I got a message from Cobb saying he was headed there with his kids. Something about meeting with Miles..." He sent Eames a quick glance, who immediately sat up straighter in his seat.

Noticing the unsaid message, Ariadne narrowed her eyes at both of them. "What are you two hiding from me?"

Eames sighed. "From here on out, it's going to be a delicate situation. There's going to be a lot of conflicting emotions, but in the end, we all know what the right thing will be and it will be done. Now, it's not necessarily us that will have any issues. It's Cobb we need to keep an eye on."

"It's something to do with Professor Miles and Dom, isn't it? Did Miles do this?" Ariadne scoot to the edge of her seat, her voice an octave higher. She didn't want to believe a teacher she looked up to could be capable of such deviance.

"No," Arthur said slowly. "But the entire situation is heavily wrapped around them. I suppose, looking at it from a distance, and in the future, we'll all be able to see clearly how it could have happened," he mused. "And it definitely wouldn't come as a surprise."

"Arthur," Ariadne ground out. "Stop stalling."

"It's Cobb's mother-in-law, Josephine. She hired Yusuf," Eames blurted. "No need to beat around the bush anymore, Arthur. It's not fair to her."

Arthur just sent him a dark look. "Don't play the good guy, Eames." To Ariadne, he said, "Dom and Josephine have had a rocky relationship since Mal's death. More so since he came back and was cleared of all his charges. She feels Mal wasn't rightly given justice. Just as Mal was blind to the truth of reality and dreams, Josephine is blind to the fact that Mal was mentally unstable and committed a disillusioned suicide."

"And she blames Cobb for everything. Like Arthur said, looking at it now, it's quite clear as to why she'd want revenge. Then again, why on earth did she want to poison the minds of everyone in the extraction business. I'm keen on that tidbit," Eames said, leaning back in his seat.

Ariadne blinked quickly a few times, absorbing the new information. She didn't know a lot about Cobb's family as a whole, but it seemed as if, even after making peace with Mal's shade in the dreamscape, he was still haunted with her death in reality by Mal's mother. The woman would be a constant hound to his mind and heart, always trying to plant the seeds of doubt once more in his mind.

She could tip him over the edge of sanity and make him want the dreamscape with Mal. Perhaps just to escape the guilt.

And she had a niggling feeling that, while Cobb was on the run and Miles taught at the university, she had tried many times, maybe even succeeding, to plant the dark seeds in both James and Phillipa as well. Her heart hurt a little at the thought of corrupting a child's mind and heart with such malice and ill intent.

"You talked to Cobb, then?" she asked them.

Eames nodded. "Arthur called him not long after you fell asleep. Took the news a tad better than we'd expected. But not much more than that."

"I think Dom knew, in a way, that Josephine was very much capable of it. She knows of extraction and the dreamscape. It was Miles who taught Dom, after all, and both he and Mal were deeply in the business of extraction and subconscious security," Arthur said over his notes. "It just hit home that she would actually do something so malicious. It's one thing to be rude and give cutting jabs over dinner and another to want to drive someone to suicide. And just like Eames said, it's also so amazingly farfetched that she would want to bring harm to the entire community that Mal so warmly embraced."

"I guess loss and heartache can do that to someone," Ariadne mused somberly.

Eames straightened in his seat and finished his drink. "I think she's batty."

Both Ariadne and Arthur shot him disapproving glares.

– –

Dom had pulled the kids out of the last hour of their classes and drove them immediately to the airport, telling them they were visiting their grandparents again. When Phillipa asked why there were flying again so soon since their last visit, he'd said,

"They called me while you were at school. They asked to see you two. They love you both very much."

He spent the first half of their flight thinking of what to tell them. He wasn't sure on the details, but they didn't need details. They were just kids. Generalities in these situations were usually best; when adults went in too deep, kids usually got lost in the complications and the numerous  _whys_  that immediately popped into their heads. Luckily, while they were over the Atlantic, the two of them fell asleep, leaning on each other as they snoozed.

He took the quiet time to use the phone in front of him to call Arthur.

"Yes?"

"It's me, Arthur. Where are you?"

"I just landed in Paris with Ariadne and Eames. What's wrong? Aren't you still in the air?" Cobb could hear the busy noise of the airport in the background, along with Eames' booming voice, calling out to Ariadne.

"I am. Something's happened. I got a call, right after I talked with you."

"Is this why you're on your way here?" Confusion laced Arthur's words and Dom knew this confusion, the unknown, was eating at him.

Dom nodded even though his colleague couldn't see him. "I got a call from Miles, actually. I'd been just about to call him. Something happened."

The line was silent a moment. "What kind of 'something', Dom?"

"I don't know. He didn't elaborate. He begged me and the kids to come over immediately. I grabbed some clothes, the kids and shelled out a small fortune for last minute tickets. We're maybe an hour and a half from France. I'm not totally sure right now."

"It's Josephine?" Arthur asked. When Cobb confirmed, he sighed. "As far as I'm aware, the four of us are the only ones who know it's her. I can't guarantee you it wasn't a job from any of us, but you know her, Dom..."

"I know, I know," he let out a breath. "If she knows we know, she'd do something."

"She'd do something even if we didn't know. She's extremely paranoid. You've known this for years. Mal took after her, Dom. I will admit, though, Mal was nothing like Josephine."

"I know, I know," Cobb repeated, closing his eyes tight. "Look, I'm going to go. I'll be at the hospital with Miles and the kids. I'll let you know what's going on, okay?"

Arthur agreed and hung up, leaving Dom with a dial tone and a hollow feeling.

– –

Arthur asked Ariadne to take them to her apartment so they could regroup. She begrudgingly agreed, demanding that Eames stay out of her room as a prerequisite. Arthur only raised a brow as Eames let out a barking laugh.

When she let them in, she told them quickly where the bathroom and kitchen was and went to throw herself on her couch. She ignored the body the followed her and absently listened to the footsteps at the other side of her place.

"This is insane," she said to herself aloud.

"I'll admit, it's definitely not the typical schedule in the life of an extractor," Arthur mused, a small smile playing on his lips. "Are you sure you want this kind of life? You're still in the shallows. You could gather your chips and cash out if you'd like."

"You just said this doesn't happen frequently." She turned over to lay on her back, eyes zeroing in on Arthur.

He nodded in agreement. "I did. Sometimes, the enemy doesn't hide. Sometimes, they like coming at you with guns and thugs. There are scarier things that go bump in the night than our own irrational, long-term fears. The here and now fears are usually what kill us. What prey on us in this business."

Ariadne watch him a moment, trying to see if she could read his mind.

She got nothing. Per usual.

"I suppose. I could also get hurt tonight making dinner. Get raped and mugged after going to the movies next week. Hit by lightening in three seconds."

They watched each other silently for a moment.

The silence was broken by Eames, who shouted from Ariadne's kitchen. "Why don't you have food?"

She rolled her eyes. "Because I'm a student. I don't have time for eating. Or sleeping. Order something if you want to eat," she called out. "What are we waiting for, exactly?" she asked Arthur.

Arthur cleared his throat, slightly startled out of his reverie. "Dom was still in the air when he called me. I'm assuming his plane is just now landed. He said he was heading to Miles and Josephine right away. Which reminds me... Eames, please come join us. I've got new information."

The forger took his time walking to the sitting area, perching himself near Ariadne's feet, the only space left to sit. "From Cobb?"

"Yes, that was him who called earlier. Apparently there's some sort of emergency involving Josephine. She's in the hospital, Miles is there with her now. Cobb and his kids are heading straight there. He said to wait for his call, for when he knew what was going on. My preliminary assumption is that she may have tried to kill herself."

"You're kidding me?" Eames asked, taken aback. Arthur shook his head. "Does she know?"

"We're not sure. But Dom knows how..."

"Unstable?" Ariadne suggested.

"Unstable Josephine is," Arthur used Ariadne's word choice, but not without a frown. "I don't want to assume too much, but it seems with all of this, it's a case of Occam's Razor."

"The easiest conclusion is the correct one?" Ariadne asked.

"Something like that."

Eames leaned back, thoughtful. "Maybe she realized that the drugs were running out or wearing off on everyone and she wanted to take the easy way out before people found out it was her?"

"Perhaps. But we're going on the assumption she's put that kind of thought into this. I mean, some of the points in all of this make it seem like she wanted to get caught. Especially by Dom," Ariadne bit her lip.

"To show him that she has power over him... Even it some little way," Arthur added. "But it still doesn't explain wanting to get to the entire PASIV community."

"I think we aren't going to figure that one out unless we ask her ourselves," Eames said, frowning. "Mostly because it doesn't make any damn sense."

Arthur rubbed his eyes in frustration. "Well, as long as our assumptions about what's happened aren't correct, we should be able to."

"If she talks," Eames added. Arthur nodded.

Ariadne stood. "Guys, I feel like you two should get some rest now. I mean, Eames, I saw you dosed for a bit on the plane, but still. And Arthur, I know you haven't slept since we shared the PASIV on Saturday."

Eames stood eagerly. "Will do. I'll just go borrow your bed..."

"No." Ariadne said to him. "You're a snoop. You're not allowed in there. You can have the couch. Unless Arthur wants it, then you can have the floor."

"Ariadne, I don't think..." Arthur began, but was quickly shushed.

"No. You don't get to boss me around on this one. Either go sleep in my bed, or sleep on the couch."

Both men stared at Ariadne a moment, surprised at the commanding tone she took. Arthur quickly stood and headed for her bedroom. "I suppose I'll be nice and allow Eames the couch then..."

"How kind of you," Eames muttered.

"Come on guys, just a few hours. It's not like I'm asking you to go swim with sharks or anything." She gathered an extra pillow for Eames from her bed and tossed it at him.

"Better hope Arthur doesn't snoop," Eames called out. "He might run into that impressive lingerie collection you've got, Ari!"

"Shut up, Eames! Sleep!" Ariadne hissed, standing over him, glaring.

Behind her, she could hear Arthur chuckle. "Should I give you a moment to hide anything you don't want me to see?"

Ariadne thought a moment. "I should probably hide the few things he dug up," she said, brushing past him, a blush on her face.

Arthur looked down at Eames, who was still sitting upright on the couch. "You don't need to goad her like that."

"True... But notice how she didn't deny the collection of lingerie?"


	14. Josephine

"So we were right, then? She tried to commit suicide?" Ariadne watched Arthur and Dom both pace back and forth in the tiny meeting room they'd requested. Eames sat back in his chair next to hers, quiet and watching as well.

Dom rubbed his eyes wearily. "Yes. She's not awake yet, so we don't know why, though. She's weak."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Miles was out for the morning, he came back and she was passed out in the kitchen. She didn't have any marks or anything. The doctor's pumped her stomach but didn't find anything, either. I'm not definite on what's going happening, for sure. They won't tell me everything, since I'm not Miles. And Miles..." Dom paused, eyes glancing out to the hall towards Josephine's room. "He's a wreck. He's in no shape to talk about it right now."

The four of them sat in silence a moment.

"You know what I just realized?" Eames asked to the room. He didn't wait for any of them to answer. "We talked to Yusuf and he admitted to providing her with the sedative to spike our belongings with. But we never asked him if he provided her with any other concoctions."

"Like things that are virtually undetectable or leave no trace..." Arthur muttered, eyes narrowing in thought. "Son of a bitch."

"Yusuf's sneaky like that. He knew we were too preoccupied to ask if he'd made more than the single sedative," Eames sat up in his chair and leaned his elbows on the narrow table. "Granted, he was also a bit preoccupied with his daughter, but everything he does is well thought out and given a purpose."

"Like if we knew what he'd given her, her figurative blood would be on his hands if she actually decided to use it?" Ariadne asked, confused.

"It's the idea that all fingers could point to him. The more people that know, the more fingers, the more guilt. If we didn't know, then if she decided to use it, we wouldn't possibly know it was something of his that did it. However, if he'd told us and she used it, then we could automatically assume it was his poison," Eames confirmed.

"Did she ask for this or did he just give it to her?" Dom asked Eames, who shrugged.

"No way to tell unless Josephine wakes up and she tells us. Yusuf's long gone by now."

"He has three days, though," Ariadne interjected.

Arthur shook his head. "There's no way he'd take that chance. The minute we left his place, he'd have started packing.  _If_  he's still in Mombasa, he's hiding out until he can get a flight out of there with Saira."

Dom looked to Arthur, confused. "Who's Saira?"

"His daughter," he said dismissively. "And there's absolutely no way to get a hold of him. He's smart enough to know how to cut all ties."

Dom stared at the others, bewildered. "Yusuf's got a... Wait. Off topic. What do we need right now?"

"We need for your mother-in-law to wake up so we can talk with her," Eames said, frowning. "As we told you, we can understand her reasoning with wanting revenge with you—and you agree—but we want to know why she would attack us like this. At this point, she's killed two extractors and a point man. Their deaths are pointless, Cobb."

"I know!" Dom said, throwing his hands in the air. "I don't know what to do, Eames. Seriously now. The only thing we can do is wait and hope she talks. You can't force it out of her and she's too fragile to be taking under with the PASIV. It would kill her."

"Dom," Miles stuck his head in the room, leaning heavily on the door. His eyes flickered to the others, settling back on his son-in-law quickly. "I need to speak with you a moment."

Cobb looked to the others before following Miles out the door to the bright hallway. "What's going on?"

"Phine's vitals have been...improving slightly while you were with the others. She's awake, but is barely talking. After she visited with the kids, she asked to see you."

Dom gave him a bewildered look. "She wanted me?"

"She specifically asked for 'that man', but it's clear on who that is." Miles gave him a somewhat apologetic grimace.

"Alright, I'll go now, I suppose. You've had your time with her already?"

Miles nodded. "I was with her when she woke up."

"And... Did she mention anything about what happened to you?" Dom grimaced at his own question.

"I-I'd prefer if you go speak with her now so I can sit with her, Dom."

Dom placed a hand on his shoulder a moment before heading into Josephine's room. The chairs were still near the bed, evidence of James and Phillipa's short stay, the monitors lit up and beeping told him something wasn't quite right. Her eyes, only open a touch, watched him walk in and stand at her side.

"Josephine," he whispered, looking down at her.

She narrowed her eyes. "Dominic. You took too long. Sit." She barely waited for him to comply before her raspy voice continued. "The solution I've taken is eating me alive. I've sacrificed time I'd rather spend talking with my grandchildren to waste on you. You will listen to me, and you will listen well. If you interrupt me, I will say nothing more and you will have nothing."

Her words dripped acid, which made goosebumps rise on his skin. He nodded, poised on the edge of his seat. He was worried not only for the words, but for what this ravenous poison she insisted she'd ingested was doing.

"You were a good man. Once upon a time. You were the kind of man I was proud to say was with my Mal, who was the father to my grandchildren. And then you got farther into the dreamscape Miles taught you. You went into that filthy extraction business. I did not mind the security, as long as you stayed safe for the children. But stealing, breaking into peoples' minds. It is like  _rape_. You rape their subconscious for another person's profit. And you took Mal into it. You showed her something she should not have known. Just those few times, she told me about them, but with her mind... She wanted to push the boundaries. You knew this was how she was. You let her, and you went with, right to the edge.

"You took her to the edge of madness. You cultured her love of curiosity with the dreamscape and suddenly whisked it away. To take away something so addictive, so maddeningly beautiful was so cruel of you. You are the reason why my daughter went mad. You pushed over over that building's ledge that night, Dominic." Josephine's voice hitched, her breathing labored as she finished. The monitor next to her head picked its pace up, but leveled out as she controlled her puffs of breath.

"But... Why did you attack all of the dreaming community, Josephine? If I'm your problem?" Dom whispered, watching her eyes for something, anything. He hoped he could glean something extra from them, perhaps.

"Because you are all guilty of crimes. You all steal, you deceive, lie. You molest the minds of people you worm your way into. Whether they deserve it or not is not up to you to decide. I want all of you to know the same pain I do. My greatest nightmare was that I would lose my family. You and your  _hobby_  took away my family, Dominic. I should not have had to bury my daughter."

Dom shook his head. "I don't understand. Why are you punishing Phillipa and James like this? They love you and you're making them lose you like this..."

Josephine sniffed disdainfully. "They will lose me eventually. Do not guilt me. I have lived the last several years in unending pain. Even though this is not the ideal way to go, it is a way that I can guarantee you suffer. Mal has helped me plan this out. She knows what she is doing."

"Mal?"

"She visits me in my dreams. The one last place I can see her before crossing over. The last place on earth she can stay and you cannot get to her and kill her  _again_."

– –

Ariadne left the others in search of the bathroom.

And that was how she came across Phillipa, who was sitting against the wall there, crying. Ariadne blanched slightly, unused to crying children. Taking a deep breath, she tiptoed to her and crouched down.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

Phillipa looked up, blue eyes watery, cheeks pink and heated. "You were talking to my dad," she said instead of answering her.

Ariadne nodded. "I've worked with him, yes. I'm Ariadne. Is everything okay?"

"No," Phillipa stated, staring at the woman in front of her. "Everything is weird again."

"How do you mean?"

"Grandma is sick. That's why we're here. And I heard her talking to my dad. She said she sees mom. But mom is gone." Phillipa hiccuped. "She was yelling at him, saying it was his fault she's here. Said you're all bad too."

Ariadne frowned. This had obviously been a heated discussion, neither of them paying any attention to if anyone had been listening in. Hadn't Miles told them after he'd finished with Cobb that he was going to watch the children? She wondered where he and James were.

"She said I was bad?" The little girl nodded. "I don't think I'm bad... I just design buildings and stuff for a living. And go to school."

Phillipa looked down at her shoes. "I don't like it when grandma is like this to dad. She talked bad about him when he was gone working, too."

"I'm sorry," Ariadne sighed. "Sometimes people just will think whatever they want. No matter what."

"I don't like it. I think she's wrong too. Dad didn't do anything," she said again firmly. "But I'm sad that she's here, sick. Grandpa says she might have to stay here."

"How come you were listening to them talk, Phillipa?" Ariadne asked.

The little girl blushed and tried to look past Ariadne. "I was looking for dad."

Ariadne cocked her head, sensing a lie. "Really."

Phillipa's mouth puckered, her jaw set. "Yes."

"So you weren't trying to get a peak at me or any of the others your dad works with?"

Another flush of her cheeks. Ariadne decided to leave it alone.

"Let's go back to your brother and the others, okay? Just remember that sometimes people say things they don't always mean. Have you done that before?"

"Yes. I told dad once I liked his food. It was really bad, really," Phillipa frowned, serious. "Don't ever eat my dad's cooking, okay, Ariadne?" She stood and scrubbed the tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt.

Standing, Ariadne promised she wouldn't. "Let's go find them now. Does that sound good?"

"I guess. Can you not tell dad that I heard them? He'd get mad, I think."

Ariadne nodded and opened the door. Stepping out, she bumped into Arthur, who let out a barely audible grunt.

"Ariadne, I've been looking for you..." He looked down and saw Phillipa, who was blushing again hotly, standing next to her. "Phillipa, Miles is looking for you."

"Where is he?" she asked, stepping past the two adults.

"Just around the corner, talking to a nurse," he told her, pointing. The girl thanked him, smiled at Ariadne, and walked away quickly, rounding the corner.

"You were looking for me?"Ariadne asked Arthur, turning to him.

He nodded. "Cobb just left Josephine's room. She admitted to it. But unfortunately, it doesn't do much good. She also admitted to taking a poison." He put his hand on the small of her back and started walking. "Let's go back to the conference room and talk this out with Eames and Cobb. We've got to make a decision."

"What kind of decision?" she asked worriedly. They reached their small room and opened the door as she spoke.

"The kind that could get Cobb killed," Eames said, watching them walk in. "If all the other extractors and the like know it was Cobb's family that did this for something he did within his personal life, they will hunt him down in retribution."

"That's absurd. It would be a never ending cycle."

"It's how the game of crime is played, Ariadne," Arthur said, sitting. He gestured for her to do the same. "This may not seem like it, and at times, we forget. You've been told this before. This is a crime network. A well-organized, high standard crime network. We all have to work together, but given the right opportunity, we'd sell each other out. Just like any other."

"There wouldn't necessarily be anyone who would avenge me, though," Cobb said from his seat, busy studying his hands in front of him. "I don't expect it, nor ask it. In fact, I would be a little angry if you did. It would be a waste and an unnecessary risk."

Ariadne gaped at him. "We can't just let them get you. Your children! You fought so hard for them! You risked our lives for them!"

"That's what we needed to talk about," Eames said, leaning in close to her. "You need to listen for it to work. We need you to agree to it."

Ariadne leaned away from him and the table. "Enlighten me."

"We want to tell everyone who it was, once she's passed on. Tell them that she is gone and the whole story, if they ask. They will, no doubt about that. They will all immediately call for Cobb's death; His life for the three Josephine took and the two who are damaged beyond repair. We will all pretend to wash our hands of him, but I will stay behind and take care of the job the others will want done. A mercy, really. Some, like Barty, are quite sadistic." Eames watched Ariadne's face as he spoke, waiting for her to crack and shout, spout one of her speeches.

Nothing.

"We'd make it look very convincing and we'd let Eames deliver the news of his 'conquest'. Cobb will disappear and his family will move, go under the radar after a certain amount of time," Arthur added.

"You expect your kids to go without you again for some undetermined amount of time while you shake off extractors?" she asked Cobb.

He shook his head. "Arthur said I would disappear. I could altar my appearance and identity and be around the children. Just for a month or two, then they would leave the house and we can all start over somewhere new."

"I'll put the entire plan together tonight so it doesn't sound so half-baked, Ariadne. The details will be there. I'd never let this happen otherwise," Arthur reassured her, watching her worriedly. "Dom and the kid's safety is important to all of us."

"This is insane," she said, shaking her head. "This had better work. I don't see another option if you insist on telling everyone her identity. Why not just say you found the person and say they've been dealt with?"

"Arthur's not the only point man out there. There are other many capable people out there. Granted, he's the best we've got, but there's a reason the others are in the business. They can track things down and put clues together. It would take time. Months or years, maybe, but it could be done," Eames explained.

"And Yusuf's not always the best with tying up loose ends," Arthur muttered. "I found quite a few things when I checked earlier. I've erased them, lucky him."

Ariadne stared at Eames and Arthur as they spoke to her, switching her attention to Cobb when they finished. She watched his face for any signs of worry. There were none. He trusted them completely with the plan.

Sighing, Ariadne said, "Fine. If you need help with this insane plan, let me know. But right now, I am scared out of my mind. Which, I don't know why or how that is possible. I've gone from being scared of my own subconscious to being scared of people who do what I do and who could kill me for nothing that I've done in less than thirty-six hours."

"It's best not to think too hard about all the schematics, Ari. And you've got nothing to worry about. There is some honor in it all," Eames patted her on the back. "No one will kill you over this."

Outside the conference room as they spoke, several people ran past, a light overhead flashing. Worried, Cobb stood and opened the door, letting in an alarm. "What's going on?"

A nurse pushing a cart shouted at him as he passed in broken English. "Come, Monsieur Cobb. Your family."

Throwing open the door, Cobb rushed out, leaving the three in the room to glance at each other worriedly.

"I... I should get started on the plan," Arthur said quietly, pulling his discarded legal pad to him.


	15. Aftermath

The autopsy report, two weeks later, had come back clean. The final verdict was death by natural causes brought on by age and stress. No one bothered to contradict the coroner or anyone else to upset the delicate balance everyone involved had struck. Every breath was baited with tension, dancing with words around Cobb and his family.

Arthur had, just before the report was released, leaked who the apparent culprit was. Most acted as had been predicted; outraged, resentment, disbelief. Upon hearing of Josephine's death, the more mild mannered extractors shook their heads and walked away, thankful that the nightmares were behind them. Only a handful expressed their rage for Cobb's issues having an effect on them.

Which put their plan into motion.

The funeral was held near Cobb's home; Josephine's will stated she wanted to be buried wherever Mal was. Ariadne was sent back to Paris the day after, barely given warning. She was told by Eames as he dropped her and Arthur off at the airport. Arthur guided her through security and left her feet from her gate, mouth open at the last words he said to her.

"If you try to find us, you will die. We'll come to you if we want to."

She watched him turn, small carry on hiding the PASIV he'd paid security off to get through, and head to the domestic concourses. He didn't bother to look back or even say goodbye.

During the flight, she found herself crying quietly, to her surprise. She didn't know why. But she assumed life had added up in the last several weeks, Josephine's death and the haunted glow in Cobb's eyes returning the day before, and she'd just now cracked under the pressure. She huddled close to the window, taking deep breaths, trying to stop.

Most of the flight, she'd felt eyes on her. From what seat she didn't know until she got up to use the toilet.

She hadn't really tried to search them out. They ended up being the speck in the corner of her eye as she passed and she tried to not react to their presence. When she walked back to her seat, she only saw the back of their head, immersed in a Sky Mall catalog. But she recognized Amy's head of curls immediately from her first job without Cobb.

As she buckled back into her seat, her mind raced with the possibilities of why Amy was on her flight. The odds of it being random and complete coincidental were slim to none. The chances of this being a hit or a threat seemed much more real. In her mind, Ariadne calculated the ways and odds of Amy making herself know opposed to keeping in the shadows.

She shuddered at the thought.

Her plane landed at Charles de Gaulle just over an hour later. Immediately, Ariadne made her way through the gate and customs and tried to make an inconspicuous beeline for the exit. Outside at the taxi curb was where Amy caught up with her.

"Ariadne! Hold on, please!" Amy jogged up to Ariadne, who tried to act surprised at seeing her. The woman wore a small smile as her hands nervously patted down her flyaway curls. "Fancy running into you here," she said, chuckling.

"Yeah, odd," Ariadne murmured. "Are you taking a trip?"

Amy laughed. "Oh, girl. We both know why I'm here. I'd like to talk with you. Let's share a cab." She flagged a car down and opened the back door, gesturing for the younger girl to get in. "I'm not here to hurt you. But we need to talk. Please."

Ariadne climbed in and told the driver the address of a cafe near her apartment as Amy followed. As they pulled away, Amy started in.

"Ariadne, we need to know what is going on with Cobb and the others in your little group. What happened and why did they dump you on the first available flight to Paris?"

The cab was quiet a moment, only the semi-muted ramblings of the driver's radio filtered through the car.

"It was suggested that I leave before something happened to Cobb over the entire mess of what happened. Arthur agreed and said he was going to do the same. They wouldn't tell me exactly what would happen," Ariadne said, frowning. "Eames said he had business to take care of before he left."

"They wouldn't tell you what might happen?" she said incredulously, staring at the architect. "You're a smart girl, I don't believe for a second that you don't know what's going to happen."

"I never said I wouldn't guess it. Sometimes they forget that just because I'm not a seasoned professional like the rest of you that I'm smart enough to make my own conclusions. I'm highly underestimated."

"You're not upset?"

"I'm torn apart now, Amy. I am a mess. A mentor of mine is about to be hunted down for something he couldn't control," Ariadne hissed angrily. "And I am expected to just walk away and pretend I don't know its happening and never try to contact the others unless they make the first move. What is that?"

Amy sighed. "I'm honestly on the 'walk away' side, but I'm trying to keep some people in control. Naturally that means I've been asked to tail you. I wish things didn't have to be this way; Cobb is a good guy and one hell of an extractor, but some people can't be mollified by rationality. Is there anything you're not telling me, Ariadne?"

"No. I wish things didn't have to be this way, either. It seems..."

"Barbaric? Simplistic? Beneath us?" Amy looked ahead. "I thought that way once upon a time. And then you see it more and more, in ways you never thought you'd ever really see. Our business is glorified to the new so that you're drawn in with grandeur and when things like this happen, you know too much and it's too late to walk away."

"You're saying I'm in now. For life." She toyed with her scarf, staring at the older extractor before speaking up. "I suppose that's fine. It's a bit of an addiction, the creation, the power."

Amy smiled softly. "Power is not alluring to pure minds."

"I never said I was pure."

A cell phone rang, cutting whatever Amy's response was short. She dug in her bag and pulled out a small silver phone. She gestured for Ariadne to hold on and answered.

"Jav, what's up? What do you mean Will got to him first?" Amy's voice raised an octave, alerting Ariadne, who had a genuinely startled look on her face.

 _Who was Will and how had he gotten to Dom before Eames?_

And it occurred to her that she didn't know Eames' first name. And for some reason, despite the serious situation, Ariadne felt like the name Will was totally absurd and fake. Like much of the front Eames gave off.

Amy's eyes darted to Ariadne. "No, I've already talked to her. I didn't notice anything off. I can go back if you want me to. How did this happen?"

Ariadne didn't need to strain her ears to hear the faceless man named Javier on the other end. She knew exactly what he was telling Amy. Unless their plan had gone wrong. And if that was the case, jumping from the moving cab was a viable option, despite the heavy traffic.

The driver pulled up to the cafe just as Amy finished her conversation. Ariadne threw cash at him and climbed out, praying Amy wouldn't follow her. Of course, because this wasn't the dreamscape, Ariadne's will was not followed through.

"Ariadne, get back here!" Amy called out. "We're not done!"

Ariadne whirled around. "What's left? What? Judging from that call, Cobb is dead. Fucking dead because of some messed up delusion of an eye for an eye. Am I going to have to watch my back now, Amy?"

Amy's mouth gaped a moment. "Uh... No... The issue was only with Dom Cobb. You're clear. We just had to keep an eye on you."

"Who did it?"

"Eames. William Eames did it. Shot him in the head. Javier and Kim Lee were watching them from a distance and Eames just...just pulled out his gun."

Ariadne rubbed at her eyes a moment, suddenly tired. "Was there anything else you needed? Can we be done now? The last two months have been a little long. I'd like to go home." When Amy nodded, face grim, Ariadne turned around and walked away.

– –

When Arthur called Ariadne two weeks later and she told him how she'd been followed, he was livid with himself.

"I'm getting sloppy," he growled.

"Arthur, those two weeks you barely slept an hour each night. Add that to all the shit with Josephine, you're allowed to make mistakes. This one was nothing," Ariadne reasoned with him, setting down her sketch book and pencil. The doodle on the page was just the view outside her window. She'd graduated and handed in her  _thèse_ with a flourish to Professor Montag, the replacement for Miles.

She could hear him huff on his line. "That's not how it works. If it hadn't been Amy, it could have been someone else. And they wouldn't have just talked, despite the assurance she gave you over what they wanted from you."

"Still," she shrugged, forgetting he couldn't see her. "It didn't. Why are you calling?"

"You're very blunt today," he commented. "But I'm calling to see how you're doing over everything that's happened. Cobb's death is upsetting to us all."

"I'm okay, I suppose. How is his family?"

"Miles and the children are grieving in peace that they deserve. But they're okay, considering."

There was silence on both ends of their lines. Ariadne could tell he wasn't used to checking in with people he'd worked with like this. But she also knew he wasn't used to circumstances like these. She wasn't sure if anyone really could handle it as well as he was.

"Have... Have you started dreaming again since?" she asked, biting her lip. She had to know if there were any side effects; if she was alone.

"Dreams like before I started going under the PASIV? No, no. It's just like Yusuf said. It would be a bit startling to start dreaming after so long, I think. You were still dreaming before all of this, right? Are you still?"

Ariadne heard paperwork shuffle in the background as Arthur spoke. She wondered where he was at. "No. The dreams stopped after the nightmares did," she said quietly.

A pause. "I'm sorry they had to end like that, Ariadne."

"It's fine," she said briskly. "I'm fine. Dreaming wasn't that important to me, anyway."

"Don't say that. Dreaming is very important. Just because you don't do it in sleep anymore doesn't mean you should give up on it. 'Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante or Shakespeare.'"

"Who said that?" Ariadne asked. "And why do you have that memorized?"

He chuckled. "A man named H.F. Hedge. I have a lot of things memorized for different reasons."

"Do you have dreams, Arthur?" she asked.

"Everyone has dreams," he said immediately.

Ariadne sighed. "Do  _you_  dream?"

"I'm only human," he said wearily. "I'm allowed my dreams and imagination, despite what Eames thinks."

They talked a while longer and just before their conversation wrapped up, Arthur posed one more ultimatum to her.

"I know Amy told you that since this mess, you're stuck, but, if you really want, you could leave. You've got one last shot to leave all of this behind. Build the greatest buildings on Earth without having to watch your back or worry about the dangers of the dreamscape."

Ariadne thought a moment. "Instead of answering your question, Arthur, I have one for you. Why are you so adamant about me getting out?"

"I don't like the idea of corruption, in any form. The fact that we dragged you into this... It just doesn't sit totally right with me," he said, hesitant. He had to tread careful, the wrong words were sure to set her off otherwise.

"Corruption? Arthur, just because I don't know a lot about shared dreaming and the dreamscape does not mean I'm this innocent kid you all seem to picture me as. Granted, I'm young, but give me a little credit here. It's getting old real quick," she fumed.

His words had obviously not been careful enough.

She continued. "I get it that this life is dangerous. I'm prepared to face that. I sure as hell won't get used to it if you keep trying to force me out of this. I cannot leave now. I'm much too far in. Not only with knowing things and people, but with the passion involved. Taking that away from me would be cruel. You and Cobb took away my dreams, do not take these opportunities, too."

She hung up on him.

– –

Their plan had been simply complex.

Watch those who were watching over Cobb.

Cobb had designed several complicated algorithms and angles that allowed the ruse of being shot.

The art of illusion outside of dreams. Using reality to their advantage.

For the first time in years, Cobb's training in architecture and measurement were used to his advantage.

However, the theatrical pistol whips Eames had served to his face were very much real, and, if he was ever able to meet him again, he vowed to serve it back to him one day.

Eames knew he had put himself on another shitlist, but as long as it got everyone in their network settled down, he didn't care.

Cobb was a good man with kids to worry about. It would be years before he got any kind of revenge.

Just as long as he didn't have Arthur help him.

– –

Arthur took some time to sit on the sidelines.

He did the odd job of information gathering for some extractors, but didn't take on the mantle of point man with them. He had to put on the guise of grief at losing his partner and a friend.

After his phone call with Ariadne, he distanced himself with her, Eames and the Cobb family in order to gain perspective. Since his first and last inception job, everything he knew had been turned around. Including his view on Ariadne, who was proving to be made of more barbs and nails than he'd originally thought.

All he knew was that he needed to pay more attention to the details. The details, which were supposed to be his forte, part of why he was in the dream sharing network.

And if he couldn't gather the facts, then who was he?

– –

He was dead.

Dominic Cobb no longer existed.

He had a new name, a new life.

With his children, he lived in a new home in a new area.

This game he and the others had planned out had to be explained to James and Phillipa, who were both like zombies.

While they and Miles all still had each other, they were all very much still broken. Their lives, their realities were shredded and they were lost.

This life was supposed to be a new start for them.

But he had no idea how to explain things, how to build things up off the ground in a way that the children could understand and not hate him for.

While not a nightmare, his reality was very much terrifying.


	16. Harvest

People who do not care about the consequences to their actions can be the coldest, the most cruel in the world.

 

The can be the most passionate, driven humans in the world. Sometimes our brightest, our most talented. But it is their passion and that single-minded drive that can poison their own minds, giving them tunnel vision. Blacking out the world around them.

The world, which can see each and every action and either watch in wonder or horror as they are played out. The world which is affected by the ripples by these actions the people commit.

We are often attracted to these people who exert such passion and seemingly pure power. This leads into following blindly, without question or doubts.

The people who blaze forward in their intent do not care if they break peoples' wills.

 

If they destroy lives.

Change personalities.

Instill new fears.

 

All that matters to them is the end. Whatever means they use to reach the end, the idealized checkered flag, are just that. The means. The bricks on the road to success.

Sometimes, people can just be overcome by the idea of success and the thrill of passion. The rush of adrenaline and potential.

But most are overcome with the degree of sociopathic possession.

 

The glint in our eyes that sends the chill down our spines. Raises the hair on our arms and the back of our necks.

That seed of mania grows like a weed around the minds of these people, choking off rationality and dragging them down a spiral.

The single idea that consumes people can fester with this possession and not even loved ones or the simple things in life can deter someone from their rage.

 

The people who do not care, only care about one thing.

That single thought that resonates within them.

 

Revenge.

Hate.

Lust.

 

Whatever it is, it is their air, their sustenance, and it is the last thing they are able to think of before death overcomes them.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I only own my own plot/characters.


End file.
